Alita: Fallen Angel
by maxtac.jurai
Summary: Following on from the events of the movie Alita: Battle Angel, and the extra details from the movie novelization and prequel novel by Pat Cadigan. After her great loss, Alita rekindles her mission of centuries past - slay the dragon that is Nova. But to achieve this, she must find a way into Zalem, the last of the great sky cities. Will motorball be that path?
1. Prologue

Prologue

Pain. There was always pain. Not the pain of injury or damage, although she did feel that when she got distracted and let one of the other Motorballers get the better of her. No, _this _pain existed like a black hole in her chest. Ido called it heartache, an emotional reaction to loss, but how could a cyberheart, pumping cyberblood and heartsblood, feel an emotional dislocation like she felt every waking moment, and which also haunted her through her dreams? How could a URM, anti-matter microreactor feel like it was being torn apart, and simultaneously crumpled into the core of a singularity? Ido told her, while he cradled her in his arms and wiped away tear after tear, that the mind had a homunculus of the body imprinted within it, and it was the heart in _that_ body that was breaking, over and over again, not her cybercore.

But it sure _felt_ like her URM cyberheart was failing. She even had to take it out and check it every once and a while to be sure she wasn't about to shut down. Every single time, as it sat in her hand, jiggling back and forth, the red and blue coloured tubes that ran from it to her vitals awash with life and function-giving fluids, it reminded her of the day she offered it to Hugo, to sell on the black market to enable both of them to buy their way into Zalum. How Hugo, whom she later discovered was a cyborg jacker - he and his crew attacked cyborgs and took their non-critical parts for sale on the black market - had refused to take it, and warned her not to just do things for people. How he had shown her how much he loved her by refusing the very thing that would have enabled him to reach his goal, and how, in the end, that goal had turned out to be nothing but a lie in itself.

So much love, so much loss... so much pain. Her heartache redoubled, and the ghost of a sardonic smile tugged at the right side of her mouth for but a moment, and then was gone.

She let the pain wash over her, infuse her. Renew her purpose.

She knew who her enemy was. She had her sights firmly on that goal. She knew the only reliable way to get to her enemy was through a motorball racetrack full of the best and most badass Paladins Iron City had ever seen. The promise of combat did not phase her. She had been told enough times she was drawn to it, by her training. She would not flinch. She would not shy away. She would not stand by in the presence of evil. And evil was everywhere… watching.

With her path reaffirmed she stood, her motorball body, resplendent in purple and silver, with the number 99 emblazoned on shoulders and hips, answered her every command at near the speed of thought. Ido had dug his failed speed boost chip design out of retirement and dialed it back some, remarking that it was only her advanced Martian cybercore that made it work at all. The chip made this track body almost as sublime as her berserker one… almost. She loved him for that, and all the hundreds - or was it thousands - of other things he did, and continued to do for her. But she couldn't really love him back, like the father she was more and more convinced she had never had, with her mind swirling in pain. She felt bad about that - just one more thing to add to the list. A list that ended with one man. Nova.

Rolling purposefully over to the mirror, she checked her look. The Damascus blade glistened in the locker-room lights, attached to her left forearm, it's URM styling almost foreign compared to the very terrestrial, motorball-body design. The reinforced servos and partially bulked-out myofilament musculature of her arms gave them a subtly powerful appearance. So much power. So much skill. So much veiled talent. So much hidden potential that it almost seeped out of her joints, and it wasn't enough to save him. Her love. Hugo.

Looking up to her own visage, she saw her gameface - the mask of utter control - slip momentarily as a tear rolled down her cheek. She wasn't sure if it was anger, shame or a feeling of powerlessness in the moment of his fall that sullied the pure pain that animated her, but it was enough to instigate a flash of movement. As the tear left her cheek, falling down past her body, her left arm shot around, and the tip of the Damascus blade neatly bisected the tear. Moments later, the two droplets hit the hard floor a short distance apart. Forever separated. Like Alita and her love.

The sound of the announcer, and the crowd roaring in response, drew her back to her present, her current mission, and the next step along the road to her ultimate target. She would succeed, one step at a time, one race at a time. She was the irresistible force. And once she met the immovable object - Nova - he would regret his long, long life, and the poor choices he'd made that brought him to the moment of her retribution. For Iron City, for Mars, for her namesake, for Ido and for Chiren, and most of all, for Hugo.

She turned and rolled smoothly out the new-to-first-league Paladin's change room, and onto the dais, as the announcer finished revving up the crowd.

"And give it up for our Battle Angel herself, number 99, Ahhhh-leeee-taaaaa!" The crowd went mad. Her crowd, Alita realized somewhere in the back of her mind. But her laser-like focus was bent on the imminent game, and her target. He was never far from her thoughts because he was nearly always watching her. He was sure to be watching her now, probably from a fancy viewing deck on the east side of Zalum, overlooking the Motorball stadium.

The anger flared, fueled by pain. But none of it showed on her ice-cool demeanor. Something she could have almost learned from Chiren. Alita's face a mask of determination.

While the crowd cheered her name, Alita detached the Damascus blade from her left arm, and held it out, pointed squarely at Zalum, and that bastard up there. She activated the arc plasma generator Ido had reverse engineered and installed in the motorball bodies right arm... _her_ right arm. The blade infused with blue fire, which ran up the impossibly sharp weapon against the laws of gravity.

And that is what she would do. Go against the laws of this land. One step at a time. One race at a time. She would defeat all contenders and become Final Champion, and earn a ticket to Zalum. Then Nova would pay. Oh how he'd pay.

She felt sorry for the motorballers she'd have to destroy to finish her mission, and those that she cared for, still in Iron City, who she'd have to distance herself from in order to succeed. But it had to be done, like this race, right now.

She let the blade go dark, reattached to her arm, and rolled smoothly down the access ramp toward the starting line, as other motorball favorites were announced.

"You know you love him," the announcer crooned, "the only real contender for Final Champion in the past year, the cool, the Zen, the Chi-master, Jaaassshhhh-uuuuuu-guuuunnnn!"

This cheering was not for her, this time. That wasn't a problem, however…

...but he was.


	2. Chapter 1 - What's in a number?

Chapter 1 - What's In A Number?

Motorball was the spectacle for the masses - both the working class of Iron City _and _their betters in the flying city of Zalum that hung high above, dumping its garbage out of a ragged chute in the bottom of the disk on which Zalum perched. Bread and circuses, it had once been said, were needed to keep the masses from rising up. The 'bread' varied widely in quality between Iron City and Zalum, the sky city residents getting far more of all that was good, produced by Iron City and the farms surrounding it. Conversely, Iron City residents tended to get only what wasn't considered good enough for the transit tubes up to Zalum. The circuses, however, were one and the same. Iron City residents flocked to the arena for the Motorball games, or caught the highlights at home or on the large, flat screens located around Iron City. Zalumites, likewise, couldn't get enough of the spectacle of cybernetic combat on motorized rollerblades at 100+ miles per hour. They also got together in their homes in the sky city, or went out to public viewings. It was often lamented that the only reason any Zalumite would want to set foot on the ground was to go to one of the games - but it was widely known that they wouldn't enjoy the experience of rubbing shoulders with the dirtsiders.

Alita knew all this, and didn't much care. She knew there were at least some good people in Zalum. Her own adopted father, Dyson Ido, had admitted to her that he was from Zalum, as was his ex-wife, Chiren. Ido was in the good camp, even if he could never forgive himself for his birth daughter's death. That was why Ido had given her the name Alita, when he had found her in the scrapyard underneath Zalum and had rebuilt her, the first of several times. Until she could dredge up her real name from her dark and patchy memory, that would be the one she would use. Although, with the celebrity she was gaining from Motorball, it was unlikely she could ever change it. Alita was fine, really. A good, strong name. She did like it.

Chiren had been more of a mixed bag. She'd been a mortorball tuner for the then master of Motorball and the Factory, Vector. Chiren had 'broken' when her daughter had been killed by a drug addict ex-motorballer, had left Ido, and then fallen in with Vector, on promises of getting back to Zalum. Chiren had built motorball champions, and a champion of another sort - Grewiskha. He had been Nova's champion. Chiren had worked with Vector to bring Alita down, on the orders of Nova, the ruler of Zalum. Alita had thought Chiren thoroughly evil, up until she had helped Alita save her love, Hugo, in the ruined cathedral that fateful night, when Zapan, an amoral Hunter-Warrior, had set about killing Hugo, on a false claim of murder, to get back at Alita. It had been a huge mess, ending with the deaths of Grewiska and Vector by her own hand, and, the way Alita's heart told it, Hugo's death was on her hands, too. Chiren had been vivisected by Vector's cronies, to be sent in pieces to Zalum for Nova's strange experiments. Alita had felt bad that she hadn't tried to save Chiren's brain, to get it back to Ido to be put into a Total Replacement (TR) cyborg body. Although, if Hugo's reaction to being TR'd was any indication, Chiren would probably have gone mad and tied to kill herself. In dark, silent moments, Alita still wondered what had happened to her remains.

It had taken Alita a few months to process all that had happened, all through the lens of pain she'd lived with since Hugo's death. She'd spent that time decimating the competition in Motorball Second League, and breaking into Pro League. She now understood that 'the watcher behind the eyes,' Nova, was the root cause of all the death and destruction she'd experienced since her 'rebirth.' He pitted the residents of Iron City against each other for sport. He'd told her as much that fateful day in Vector's office, while possessing Vector himself. Nova, the ruler of Zalum. Immortal, amoral, a beast… and Alita's target from the Great War. The Fall. 300 years ago. The convergence was a little too perfect. She needed to destroy him, avenge the fallen, save Iron City, and probably Zalum as well, and 'finish the mission' for the United Republics of Mars (URM) that had brought her to Earth some 300 years earlier. Simples...

And how would she do it? Why, by becoming Final Champion in the Motorball Pro League, of course. And _that _was why she was at the starting line of the Motorball Pro League - first match of the new season. It was widely known that the only way to get to Zalum from the ground was to become Final Champion. She doubted Nova would allow it, but she had to try. Regardless, she loved the battles, the speed, and the excitement - it even helped her forget the pain for short snapshots of time. Moreover, when she fought in a deadly situation, she'd sometimes got flashbacks to her old life, and anything she could glean from her previous training would likely serve her well in the fights to come.

Loosening up on the starting line reminded her of her first night on the track, and the band of murderers Vector has sent after her with the promise of easy money. How wrong they had been. She'd been nervous, almost ditzy on the line that night, right up until Ido's call. He told her all the practice team were ring-ins, with only one goal - to destroy the girl called Alita. That was when she's switched from teenage wannabe to motorball badass.

On that thought, she quickly scanned the crowd for Ido. There he was, with Gerhad talking excitedly on his left, and an empty seat on his right. He always kept that seat vacant, she had realized some nights previously. He said it was for his hat and coat, but it was warm out most nights - he didn't really need them. No, he kept that seat vacant for the fallen; Chiren, his birth daughter, whose name Alita shared, and Hugo… and with that thought, the pain that was always in her chest redoubled. She hid it away, knowing she needed to focus. This was the big league.

But her mind went back to that tryout. When she was there to play motorball, and the rest were there to play murderball. She still couldn't understand what Vector had thought they'd achieve. In the doll body - a young teenage body with no combat capabilities, built by Ido for his birth daughter but never used - Alita had kicked Grewishka's arse, and killed his cronies to boot, using the lost Martian cyborg martial art of _Panzer Kunst_, that her cybercore remembered, even if her mind did not. And Vector had thought a rabble of failed Motorballers and low-rent Hunter-Warriors could best her? They had cheep, junkyard bodies. She was sporting a URM Berserker body at that time - the pinnacle of martian combat engineering. They should have gone off and got 20 of their friends - each - and then hidden behind them! But it would only have delayed the inevitable. If she hadn't been called away - more twinges of pain - she would have dismantled the lot of them right there on the track, in front of the baying crowd. Just like she'd done with anyone that stood in her way in Second League. The Second Leaguers soon worked out the best way to avoid a costly repair bill, or worse, was to do just that - make way for the Battle Angel. Not so these Paladins, as the first league players were called. She guessed she was a Paladin now. She preferred the moniker Battle Angel better.

Alita dropped into a full split, her legs near horizontal and an inch off the ground, her right wheel foot on the front wheel, and her left on the rear wheel. She looked resplendent in the high shine, purple-and-chrome track body, sporting the number 99 that meant so much in the flashes of her former life, expertly designed by Ido and tuned to a razor edge by Uma. She bounced a little, testing the hip couplings and the give in her knee joints - all working as intended - and then with just a little bust of power to the wheels still touching the ground - in opposing directions to each other - she shot back up to a standing crouch, to the ohhs and cheers of the closest of her fans near the grid. As she settled into the loose combat position, she turned her head slightly to look down the starting line and saw that Jashugan had finished with his accolades, and had joined her on the grid, his tall, hawk-nosed helmet under his right arm. He was appraising her with the usual haughty, knowing look that she'd seen on his face in all the Pro League races she'd been studying between her own Second League outings last season. He looked majestic in his gold and silver armor, with the big shoulders sporting the '00' number, with the bulked out arms covered in surface grinders - not spinning as yet - hanging from them. Then he surprised her by speaking, not something he usually did on the starting line.

"Well, you certainly do look the part, Alita," Jashugan said with a slight nod of approval, moving closer to converse over the booming voice of the announcer and the cheering of the crowds, "but you really should wear a helmet. Brains are irreplaceable." Jashugan tapped his temple, and Alita almost rolled her eyes at him in response. "I can see Dyson's expertise and flair in every curve and gear of that exquisitely fashioned body," Jashugan went on. "You are very fortunate. Many a Paladin would give much to have Ido as their tuner. It was a great loss to the game when he left it. I'm glad you could bring him back."

Alita was caught off guard. She's acted like a star-struck fan when she'd last spoken to Jashugan, just before her Murderball tryout. She'd thought he had walked up to talk to her, but it was Ido, at her side, that he'd fallen into easy conversation with. Ido had introduced Alita to Jashugan, and Alita had gushed, actually gushed at him. She felt so stupid about that, now. She hadn't tried to avoid Jashugan during her practice times and her Second League matches, it had just happened that they hadn't shared the same space again, until now. Back then, she'd been a young girl in a new, dangerous body, ready to take on anyone, and been so naive about it all. Now, with the pain that was always with her, some days she felt every year of the 300 that she'd been in stasis.

Alita glanced up, realizing that Jashugan was looking at her quizzically. "No, Ido is not my tuner," she replied in a flat voice. "He built this body, with the help of Uma, my tuner. Ed from Esdoc Motors is my manager."

"Ah, I see," Jashugan said. "Esdoc was a great opponent back in the day. It is a shame that the bad crash we shared in his last match left him unable to race." Jashugan looked honestly downcast for a moment. "He knows the game better than most. He will be an excellent manager. As for Ido, I expect he doesn't want to be a fatherly distraction down in the pits." Alita frowned a little at this, and her right eyebrow raised slightly. Jashugan must have taken that as a query, for he continued talking.

"I've watched you climb through Second League, or more accurately, scare the piss out of all the other Second Leaguers so badly they wouldn't dare challenge you for the Motorball," Jashugan said, his tone suggesting he was at least mildly impressed. "But don't think that Paladins will be so easily cowed. You told me once you tread the path of the warrior. That path requires skill, dedication, and the willingness to risk everything to gain victory." He paused, and Alita found herself hanging on his every word. "Are you fully prepared for that eventuality, Alita?"

Alita felt her heart grow cold and sink in her chest. Her excitement about her first race in the Pro League a warmth that had been ripped from her. Anger took its place.

"Prepared?" she spat. "Prepared? I have lost everything in the pursuit of my goals more than once. I survived that. I can do it again."

"Everything?" Jashugan queried, and glanced to the stands. Alita followed his gaze and saw Ido and Gerhad sitting there, almost bouncing in their seats. When they saw her looking, they waved. "There is still more to lose," he continued, looking back to Alita. "We of the Path of the Warrior must always be ready for the price of victory."

_What is he doing?_ Alita asked herself. _Is he trying to mess with my head? Distract me from the race? Or is he on to me…_

"In any event, welcome to Pro League, and good fortune to you, Battle Angel," Jashugan finished in a lighter tone, and rolled away, just as Ajakutty rolled up to the line, his introduction to the crowd, somewhat shorter than her's and Jashugan's, completed. Alita noted that Jashugan used the term Battle Angel rather than Paladin. That made her even more curious.

"Hey you, purple girl," Ajakutty sneared, waggling a long, green, tooth-edged finger at Alita. "I was going to take that number, 99, for this season, up 10 from last season like I usually do, but because you arrived in the 'big time,' I can't." Alita took the measure of this brash Paladin, encased in lime green and black, the edges of his long arms toothed, like a chainsaw, as well as his fingers and calves. His helmet had a clear faceplate, and swept back, probably to improve aerodynamics. "Sign the number over to me at the end of this race, and I'll let you live," he finished, the motorized teeth on his limbs spinning up to an impressive blur and a smooth, metallic whine, and then stopping abruptly.

"Heh," Alita said in an amused tone, a crooked grin sliding onto her face. Jashugan shook his head in disappointment behind them at the exchange, and put his helmet on. "That's just not going to happen." Alita waggled the index finger of her left hand back at Ajakutty, letting stadium lights reflect off the Damascus blade attached to that arm and shine in the brash Paladin's eyes. "So whatcha gonna do about it?"

"This," Ajakutty stated, waving a trackside camera crew over. The announcer, having just finished introducing Claymore, a Paladin dressed more like a medieval knight that a cyborg track warrior, picked up on the commotion at the starting line.

"Ohhh and what's this, fans and fanatics?" the voice piped over the speakers expounded. "Ajakutty has something to say. Let's go trackside before we introduce our next Pro League Paladin. "Carl?"

"This is Carl Mercer," the reporter took over, standing next to a very smug looking Ajakutty, with Alita looking bemused in the background, "on the start line of the first race of the Iron City Motorball Pro League Autumn Season. Ajakutty, one of the Pro League regulars, wants to announce a challenge. 'Kutty?" Ajakutty grabbed the mic, slicing divots into the metal with his bladed grasp.

"That's right," he stated, slightly startled with his voice being amplified back to him. Regardless, he pressed on. "Everyone knows that each season, I cycle through the double digits. Last season I was 88, so I would naturally progress on to 99 for this season. But we have an upstart from the lesser forms of the game joining us this season, and she claims the double 9." There were some boos and a lot of cheers from the crowd. Alita felt a little less put-upon that her fans were backing her, until Ajakutty turned around and pointed an accusing finger at her. "This one, this 'Alita,' has broken my number streak, and I cannot let this stand. I challenge you, Alita of the Second League, for the number you wear, that I should rightly hold. If I score higher than you in this match, or you are wiped out and cannot continue while I finish the match, I take that number back, and you have no further claim on it! Agreed?"

Alita was shocked. She hadn't even had one race in the Pro League and she was already singled out. But she had to think quick. She only had a few seconds to compose herself before the reporter handed her the mic. She took a deep breath, never having spoken in front of such a crowd before - that she knew of. Even Zalum would be watching this…

"I accept this, and any challenge to my martial prowess," Alita stated matter-of-factually into the mic, casting a dread gaze across the assembled Paladins, the nearby crowd, and settling again to look unflinchingly at the glass eye of the camera. "Ajakutty will find, at the end of this race, he is the one face down and in pieces, and I will be the victor." She paused. "So it shall be, with all my enemies." As Alita handed the mic back, the crowd went wild. So loud was their response, that no one heard the report return the feed to the announcer's box. Alita glanced up, seeing the now worried looks on Ido's and Gerhad's faces. She gave them what she hoped was a reassuring wave, and continued to ready herself. At least there should only be one Pro Motorballer trying to murder her, this time. The others might even play some Motorball. Alita cast her mind back to all the games she'd studied where Ajakutty had played. He liked to slide, and spin, and chop bits of other motorballers with those chainsaws in his limbs. He did tend to give Jashugan a fairly wide berth, however. Something good to remember.

The other motorballers continued coming down off the podium after their introductions. Hard faces, game faces, experienced faces. This was their lives. Their big shot, their only shot. But it was just a stepping stone to Alita. Zariki, number 23, arrived next, a large cyborg in blue, white and steel, with 4 legs for balance at high speed, and 2 additional sything arms. Alita would be watching out for those. Following Zariki was Skaramasakus, number 24, another bulky racing cyborg with an unhealthy, death-like appearance, and big shields on his arms, that, when brought together in front of him created a death's head, and large, driving wheels to give him the power to bulldoze anyone or anything out of his way. Next was 07, Crimson Wind, a much more lithe, female Paladin decked out in red and chrome, and one that had impressed Alita with the speed and reaction time she could attain. Also known as Takie, Crimson Wind used no weapons, rather relying on her speed, reaction time, and incredible racing moves to win. And win she had, more than a few times last season. Alita gave her a sisterly nod of appreciation and was pleased to have it returned, along with a serious look.

The final pair of Paladins for tonight's race were number 14, Juggernaut and number 33, Bargerald. The latter had made it to Pro League late in the last season, just before Alita joined Second League. Juggernaut, like the name suggested, was huge, with 4 fighting arms, arrayed with grinders, clamps, and drills attached to the wrists, which he used to great effect to dismantle opponents. His white, red and steel livery sat atop a large wheel, with 'legs,' on either side sporting stabilizing casters. Bargerald, while still sizable, had a double piston on his right arm, and was known as 'Piledriver' around the Paladin friendly bars in Eastside. He rolled up next to Ajakutty and had a quiet conversation with him, Alita noted. Those two were probably track mates. She'd have to watch both of them during the coming challenge.

With the Paladin's finally assembled on the starting line, the announcer bid the crowd to hush, as the time had come for the opening game address to be given by the somewhat new head of The Factory. This would be her first open address, and the people of Iron City were interested to hear what she had to say.

Out onto the dais each of the Paladins had occupied in turn, a fit, tanned-skinned woman, probably in her late 30's, with refined, well-cared-for features, and sharp eyes, confidently strode. The clothing she wore, which was probably a dress of some description - Alita wasn't very good with more feminine fashions - was made of a complicated collection of swatches of dark fabric of varying types, all flowing down her body, presenting an ever-shifting cavalcade of graceful movement as she walked. The effect was pleasant, even somewhat mesmerizing, and it reminded Alita of something… but it wouldn't come to her. The woman scanned the crowd, glints in her long, dark, flowing hair suggesting she had something woven into her locks. The effect oozed, elegance, grace, and above all, power.

"My fellow denizens of Iron City," she began, in an amplified voice that was strong, firm and pleasant, "welcome to the Autumn season of Motorball Pro League!" She raised both her hands quickly, fists clenched, and the crowd responded with an almighty cheer. Alita noted that her arms, while feminine and graceful, were subtly muscled. She was definitely not a weak person. She dropped her arms after about 10 seconds, and most of the crowd dutifully quieted down again.

"I realize some of you do not know me, so let me fix that first. My name is Dutchess, and I run both the Factory and Motorball after the untimely demise of the last incumbent, _Vector_." Dutchess almost spat the name. She was no Vector fan. Neither was most of the crowd by the booing and catcalling. Dutchess also looked squarely at Alita as she said it. Alita tried not to look surprised, and mostly succeeded. There was a statement in that stare. _Don't you try that with me, girl. _Alita looked unabashedly back with her own message. _Don't give me a reason to come after you too, then! _After a few seconds that seemed to drag, the Dutchess subtly nodded once, looked away and continued on.

"Factory production was shaky during the changeover, but we are now back to meeting quotas, and I am pleased," she finished and smiled. She had quite a pleasant smile, and despite herself, Alita found herself warming to this new woman-in-charge. The crowd, however, didn't quite know what to make of it, as Vector had never, ever said he was happy with the work being done in the factory, because he believed that if you ever said you were pleased about something, workers would start to slack off. "So I dedicate this season of Pro Motorball to you, the workers. You keep this city moving, and Zalum mostly happy, and that's what we're here to achieve. You'll all find a little extra in your pay dispersions this cycle. Enjoy it!" Dutchess threw her fist in the air again.

The crowd erupted in a cheer that would have been heard all the way to Zalum. Vector had never done a single thing for the people of Iron City that he wasn't forced to do. This was unheard of, breaking new ground. Alita thought with new masters, came new methods, but this was almost too good to be true for the people who toiled each day making goods for their so-called betters in Zalum.

While the crowd continued to cheer, Alita's head com buzzed. She answered it, and it was Ed, her manager. "Sounds great, don't it," he intoned in his deadpan voice. "But what you don't know is Dutchess controls all the drug dealing in Iron City and half of the farms. A lot of that extra cash will go to buying drugs, and make its way back to her hands anyway." Alita scowled. She knew there had to be a punchline somewhere, and there it was, right in the guts of the workers. Dabbling in drugs would get a lot of them hooked, and it'd be a downhill slide after that.

"What's this with a challenge, Alita?" Uma cut in on the call, his excited voice at odds with Ed's monotone. "Are you going to kick 'kutty's ass up under his chin for him?" Alita suppressed a giggle as Ed cut in.

"No Alita, don't take personal challenges! We have to consider your sponsor, Mr. Thompson, and how it will affect your rating. Why, when I was on the track…"

"When you were on the track," Uma took back over, "you'd jump the pit wall to pursue a personal slight!" Uma gauffed. "And anyway, I've checked with Tommy, and he's fine with it. Any publicity is good publicity. Smart man."

"And so," Dutchess was finishing up as the crowd calmed again, "I declare Motorball Pro League Autumn Season OPEN! Enjoy!" She spun and walked off the dais, as the Motorballers all around Alita answered Dutchess with hard revving engines, and weapons clashing on thighs.

"You heard the lady, Paladins," the announcer crooned, "20 seconds to brakes off. As this is the first game of the season, it is a free-for-all. 10 laps, and _no_ teams!"

The Paladins all started getting serious. Helmets went on, visors went down, last checks on weapons were made. But Ed wasn't finished on the call. "Alita, if you are going to go up against 'Kutty like that, you should be wearing your helmet!" It was the most emotion Alita had ever heard in Ed's voice, which still wasn't much.

"But it just gets in the way," Alita protested, "and it's too late to go back for it now." She wasn't wrong, as the lights on the race plotter started dipping through the red levels towards orange.

"How about the neck and skull augments I built into your track body, then?" Uma suggested, "at least if you take a blow to the neck or head, your brain will be less likely to take serious damage."

"OK, I give in," Alita sighed, acquiescing, and mentally activated the new augments. As the lights continued to track down towards the starting greens, she felt high tension alloy composite bands snaking up her neck from her track body's back and in through her hair, adding extra armor to her cranium. They were slightly spaced and remained pliable until struck, so they would at least slow a slashing blow to the back of her head, if not a stabbing thrust. More metallic bands slid up the sides of her neck, again protecting that area, and then folded up around her jaw, laying out across her cheeks and under her eyes. Alita caught the reflection of her face in the sheen of her left arm, and couldn't help but smile broadly at the layout of the face augments.

"Uma, you crafty devil," she crooned. "You remembered how I described the Kunstler augments to you!" The race was moments from starting.

"That was Ido's addition to the system," Uma said, "he's such a thoughtful, clever man. But enough admiration, you have a race to win."

"On it," Alita replied, cutting the connection and dropping into a high acceleration crouch as the motor noise on the starting line reached a crescendo. This was going to be fun!

The lights hit green, and the Paladin's exploded off the line… it was on!


	3. Chapter 2 - To put a foot wrong

It was a balmy autumn night in the executive bay of the eastern observation deck of Zalem, but then the technology level in the sky city was such that those with power never had to suffer through seasonal unpleasantness. The man looking over the railing at the far-off spectacle of the opening game of the Motorball Autumn Season had held all the power for as long as anyone beside he himself could remember. Nova grinned broadly, his elite, chrome optics showing him the far-off Motorball event as if he was only a handful of yards away. His shock of white-blonde hair moved gently in the evening breeze, like a deadly sea creature waiting to ambush prey. His nanofabric, white-on-white, evening-wear suit, with the subtle, repeating pattern of the zalum emblem made him look like a bleached military man of the highest order - which, in reality, was part of the position he held in a vice-like grip.

Nova was in a good mood, despite all the rumblings amongst the Zalem elite of unrest at his despotic, and if rumour was to be believed, haphazard rule. That was the sort of thing those without the intellect to understand the 'grand plan' would say, and in reality, there was nothing they could do about it but complain. He held all the cards. All the power. Anyway, Nova had been busy, actually busy, setting plans in motion so he could have more direct control over events in Iron City, far below. It was a necessary move, given the rise to fame and seeming invulnerability of his recently-acquired primary subject - Alita. Or rather, reacquired. He'd dealt with this one before, and expected to do so again. This one was special - like a karmic tornado - she just kept popping back up, and despite near-total amnesia, it hadn't taken her long to work out what her old mission was, and where to go to continue it. Of course, her original mission had been to kill Nova himself, and after the events of the past few months, which Nova had enjoyed more than anything in the past few decades, Alita really had ramped up her enmity toward him.

A sadistic smile crept across Nova's features as the lights at the Motorball track went green and the race began. As he'd expected, Alita was quick off the mark, in the front 3, jostling for position to snag the motorball as it was launched onto the track when the first Paladin reached 100 mph. It really was too easy to manipulate dirtsiders when they wanted something. Alita, for example, desperately wanted to get to Zalem... to get at him. So, Nova let her think that it was possible by becoming Final Champion of Motorball. And like a dutiful hound, she was now fighting tooth and nail to become the best of the best, and win that title. So predictable, and therefore, easy meat for his other games. Games forming experiments that would start as soon as his new field asset was properly set up in Iron City, and what games they would be. She would…

"Sir?" the voice of his executive assistant derailed Nova's train of thought. Nova spun, his optics wiring as they adjusted to a more normal depth of field. He hated being interrupted when he was ruminating on his plans, and that disgust showed on his face. The man Nova beheld in the doorway to his viewing sanctum was tall and slim, with a cut to his clothing almost as fine as Nova's, but not quite. He also held himself slightly stooped, so as to take attention off his height, as he could have easily towered over Nova. This man knew how to show deference - one of the reasons he was Nova's Executive Assistant.

Seeing who it was, Nova sighed and gestured him in. The EA stepped into the room, and no longer lit from behind, Nova could see that he was as immaculately presented as always. His blonde hair - short back and sides while still thickly-wavy at the top - and blonde eyebrows, aquiline features and thin, light pink lips in a pale but not bleached face, showed him to be of scandinavian heritage. The only splashes of colour were his bright, kaleidoscopic blue eyes and the purple gem in his forehead. He was one of the finer subjects produced by the MiB, and that was why Nova kept him around. His mind was even sharper than his looks.

"I have the latest monitoring report for you, and a list of 15 prime targets for your personal attention in the next cycle," the EA continued, passing Nova a pad which he scrolled through quickly, and then discarded on the desk where several others lay. It deactivated as soon as it hit the surface.

"I'm not that interested in your hand-picked targets tonight," Nova said languidly, "I have my primary subject, and that will do me." He turned back to the railing and zoomed back into the Motorball race, not seeing the glare the EA gave him for dismissing the many hours of work out of hand - a glare that was gone almost as quickly as it had been delivered.

"I expected as much, Sir," the EA said calmly, "which is why Alita Ido was the first on that list." This quick wit made Nova grin mischievously as he watched the mayhem on the track, far below. "The second on the list, Jashugan, the Motorball Paladin, may give your new field agent a good 'in' to begin the Karmic Chi experiment you planned some time ago."

Nova caught a gasp and spun, his optics wiring wildly to focus back to normal distances, an angry grimace torn across his face showing far too much and too many teeth. "How do you know about my new field asset, and what I plan with him?" Nova demanded. The EA's muscles tensed, as if he was fighting not to take a step backwards towards the door, yet his tone betrayed none of the reticence his body displayed.

"The resources you expended to produce your new asset had to come from somewhere," the EA began, "and I'm tasked with tracking all the resource use on Zalem, by you, in fact. As the use did not come through official channels, it was either black market - unlikely - or you, Sir. To be sure, I did some research - not involving any underlings - as to what was produced, and that provided a simple answer. Then I crossed referenced with your recently published research data, specifically the future experiments section of several dissertations, and it became clear. The rest was simple deduction, based on our past conversations on the matter of Alita Ido, your intentions towards her, and motorball in general, as a tool for your research."

Nova stopped grimacing, and started slowly nodding. Then a smile lit his face, making it look almost human again. Almost. "Well, my boy," Nova finally said, clapping an arm around his EA's shoulders, "you _have_ impressed me. I'd forgotten some of your other duties, and didn't bother deleting the template from the synthesiser, in case I needed another. But I would have never thought that one of my underlings would have pieced all that together!"

Nova walked the other man over to the drinks cabinet, withdrew his arm and poured two glasses of rich, orange-brown spirit. He handed one to the EA while sampling the other. Seeing Nova drinking from the same source, the EA gingerly sipped the expensive liquor, after sniffing it experimentally. While Nova drank, he reminded himself to talk less about his plans, and encrypt all data. He'd been in charge so long, and surrounded by pretty airheads so much of that time, he wasn't used to having an intellectual challenge on his hands. But now he had two.

"Have you told anyone else of your conclusions?" Nova asked casually over his glass, his tone almost sickly-sweet, while his mind was formulating ways to quietly dispose of this EA if he became troublesome. "Especially not that annoying Advisory Committee?"

"No one," the EA assured him, and Nova's wetware went to work analysing the stress levels in the man's voice. A few moments pregnant pause, and Nova's augments assured him this man was telling what he believed to be the truth. Nova decided to let the EA live, for now. His mind would be a shame to waste, and later, if he performed admirably, he could be dissected and studied for further insights.

The EA was almost smiling - almost. Nova sensed a very guarded personality in this one, the effect of overthinking everything, no doubt. "Why yes," Nova said suddenly, "you are quite right. Jashugan will make an excellent first engagement the Karmic Chi line of enquiry. But there are a few things I'll need taken care of first."

Nova walked back to look over the balcony at the game in progress. He could feel an obsession forming with the subject in question down there, and he had to be careful with that, as well. Nova began outlining production cues and operational parameters to his EA, who put down the barely touched glass and dutifully took them down on another pad he produced from within his jacket, while his mind reeled with possibilities.

When Nova wound down, the EA pocketed the pad. "I will see to these preparations with all haste," he told Nova, and headed for the door.

"And _Bigott_," Nova added, using the man's name for the first-time-in-a-long-time for added emphasis, "if you deign to become untrustworthy, you, and everyone on Zalem _and_ dirtside with the surname Eizenburg will come to an _unfortunate _end. Do we have an understanding?"

Looking over his shoulder at the Chancellor of Zalum, Bigott could not resist swallowing hard before replying. "I fully understand, Sir," Bigott said carefully, and Nova's wetware assured him that the EA did.

Nova's smile was self-satisfied as he turned back to watch the game.

Bigott's attempt at a smile as he left the room was determined. Nova had held the reigns of power for far too long, and Bigott had to progress in his plans to do something about that, pronto.

Alita's armor flashed highlights of silver and purple, reflecting the stark glare of the floodlights as she hit the banked turn at high, almost reckless speed. But she'd done this many times before, and already knew the outcome, shifting the weight of the motorball she held in anticipation. Using the bank to launch herself into the air, Alita swung back onto the track and down towards the hulking, exhaust spewing form of Skaramaticus. His large cyborg body was facing away from her, focused on Claymore who, moments before, had slowed and turned to skate backwards, allowing him to attack Skaramaticus. The big shields on his arms were defending against a swing from Claymore, so Alita felt sure her attack from above and behind on Skaramaticus would catch him off guard.

She was wrong.

Almost too late Alita realized that Skaramaticus had rotated his arms up and over his head, forming a roof over his body almost faster than she could follow, and angled to take any further hits from Claymore on his shoulder. If she continued with the attack, she would get coat-hangered in the mid-riff by the edge of the skull-decorated panels. Still falling towards her now-ready foe, the stink of burnt hydrocarbons filling her nostrils, Alita used the motorball as a pivot and rotated her body around to be above the ball as it hit Skaramaticus's defense. Sparks flew from the motorball's buzzing nobs as they skittered across the shields, and she hung on, swinging over the ball as it threw her to the side and out of the path of Claymore's next blow which would have collected both her and her target. Pivoting to get her wheelfeet under her again, Alita couldn't resist using the last of her momentum to deliver a delicate kick to the back of Claymore's left leg as she landed. She sped off, still in the possession of the motorball, as Claymore succumbed to the destabilizing force, crashing to the track in front of Skaramaticus and whipping him off his oversized wheelfeet as well! The pileup was ferocious.

"Ohhhh, that's going to leave a mark!" the announcer exclaimed, and the stadium almost vibrated with the crowd's cheers.

_Not quite what I had in mind, but it'll have to do,_ Alita thought to herself as she sped around the next bend, picking up speed and passing the third red ring - the start line - for the second time. She had to keep reminding herself these weren't low-league punks. These were the pros, and it showed.

"And after a close call with Skaramaticus and Claymore, who will need more than a little buffing after that pileup, Alita picks up her 6th point of the match. Are any of the other Paladins willing, or even _able_ to stop her, with Jashugan having mechanical issues? We might be looking at our next Final Champion here, folks…" the Announcer crooned, his tone suggesting reverent awe mixed with a healthy dose of excitement. Alita smiled, almost believing the hype as she left the first banked turn after the main straight and entered a short, tube section called 'the clincher'… and that was where Ajukutty and Bargerald were waiting for her.

It was illegal to back up on the track. One of the refs would surely pick up on backtracking and call a penalty. But these two hadn't backtracked. They'd waited for her to come back around. Now they swung in, one on each side, attacking simultaneously. Ajakutty was on her right, a blur of black and green, arm chains buzzing, coming for the motorball. Bargerald was on her left, his glossy orange and white livery blurring at speed and he positioned himself, the piledriver cocked, ready for use.

Alita tensed, ready to explode into action.

"Now," came a command from Kutty, and Alita moved.

Faster than either of them could expect, thanks to Ido's overdrive-limited reflex chip, Alita dropped into a high speed crouch. She used the motorball to deflect Ajukutty's attacks, his chain blades eliciting sparks form the surface of the battered projectile. Simultaneously, she shot her left leg out, catching Bargerald's right and sweeping it out from under him. The big Paladin fought to catch his balance, and while momentarily distracted, Alita used the motorball to drive Kutty away with a hard strike to the chest. Freed from one part of the attack, she turned to see Bargerald's piston firing, aimed not at her head or torso, but at the leg Alita hadn't retracted yet due to the need to stabilize though and banked turn.

Alita retaliated with the Damascus Blade, two quick slashes, too fast for an unaugmented human to see, flashed out as the impact from the pi stoned piledriver caught her a glancing blow in the mid-calf, rather than the thigh as Bargerald had intended. Alita had to work not to destabilize and crash out - there really was a lot of force in that weapon! She looked down and saw her leg armor deformed, but not broken. There was, however, a new telltale in her peripheral vision warning her of structural and mechanical damage to her left calf. That wasn't good.

Bargerald, buoyed by his seeming victory, pivoted to place himself for another strike, and began to retract the pistons in his weapon. That's when the end of the double piston arrangement fell off, clattering behind them on the track and throwing up sparks. A stunned noise came from his vocalizer as the end of his right arm dropped off, and then his upper torso slide sideways, off his lower body in a spray of cyberblood and sparks. The crowd cheered at this dismantling, and the announcer cut in.

"Well it looked like Alita was in trouble, with 2 other Paladins, Ajakutty and Bargerald, tag-teaming her, but she's dealt most harshly with Barg, and now it would appear to be Kutty's turn…" The announcer stopped to watch, as Kutty, enraged at the dissection of his trackmate, closed in yet again. Alita was ready, deflecting Kutty strikes again with the motorball and the Damascus Blade, watching for a curve or other opening to give her an advantage to finish her foe. She saw him lean in, looking to get within her swing radius, which was very, very close at 180 mph, and Alita took the strike. But Kutty was ready, dropping backwards suddenly, as if doing a backwards dive off a cliff. Alita saw him hit the track, but rather than starting to tumble and break apart, Kutty rolled along on his back. Alita remembered seeing small protrusions on the Paladin's back while reading up on the starting line, but she'd never considered they were some sort of ball bearings, enabling him to roll along the track off his wheelfeet!

Kutty suddenly spun, relative to the track, his arms and legs, and their dangerous, spinning chainblades, swinging towards her. Alita went to jump over the whirling dervish of blades, but her damaged ankle didn't give her the lift it normally would have. Kutty saw this, and homed in on it, swinging his bladed arm out to catch Alita, mid-air, in the calf. The sound of gnashing chainteeth on her armor almost brought tears to her eyes, and when she landed, the strain was too great.

Her left wheelfoot separated from the leg, clattering away from her across the track. Ajakutty grinned ferociously as Alita was forced to drop the motorball to fight for control and avoid wiping out. The track could often do more damage than the other Paladins, as Alita knew all too well.

Alita slowed carefully, coming to rest up against the wall of the track, as Kutty correctly predicted the bounce of the careening motorball, and shot off around the next curve, triumphant.

"And we have a real upset on our hands here, folks," the announcer proclaimed, as the crowd gasped in collective disbelief. "It took 2 on 1, but Ajakutty has wrestled the motorball from Alita's possession, and… she's damaged, folks. Alita is missing her left wheelfoot, and has half the length of the track to limp through to the pits." Screens all around the stadium, across Iron City, and even in Zalum showed a zoomed in shot of Alita, leaning against the wall, rolling slowly but determinedly toward the pits. Her left calf trailing cables and blue cyberblood. Alita's mouth was drawn into a line, and her brow furrowed in concentration. "Her pit crew stands ready," the announcer continued, but can they repair this damage in time to stop Kutty taking the match, and the favored 99 from Alita's shoulder?"

Alita wobbled back toward the pits. The mask of determination she showed the cameras was accurate, but it wasn't about getting back to the pits. It was a mask of determination that she would not show the rage boiling inside of her. Rage at herself for falling into the 2 on 1 trap, and for not digging herself out of it successfully.

She was going to get a new leg slammed on just as quickly as possible, and then get back out on the track and run that bastard down. She was 99. Had been for 300 years, and none of these upstarts would take that away from her - ever. Alita was determined that Ajakutty would pay... and pay dearly.


	4. Chapter 3 - Perceptions and Realizations

Mel had been a security guard at the Motorball Arena for over 12 years. Most people found it surprising that a meatboy - abet a bulked out one - could hack it as security around so many powerful cyborgs, but Mel had his ways and means. He was also an expert in the use of a shockstick, shockglove, zappad, and the rarely employed EMP grenade, when cyborgs went completely off the rails. Thankfully, that wasn't very often.

In his years around the track, Mel thought he'd seen it all. That was, until the Battle Angel arrived. He was there when Alita had participated in her tryout - which was a nice way of saying Vector had tried to have her murdered. Rumor had it that Alita had returned the favor, with interest, but that was the sort of thing that people said about an almost unstoppable player. Although Mel often considered that, based on her meteoric rise to Pro League, they might just be right.

Mel remembered the first time he'd laid eyes on her. That smooth-talking street kid, Hugo, who did work for Vector and so had the run of the place, brought her down to the pits to show her around and was probably trying to impress her. She d been little more than a wide-eyed kid then, gawking at the Paladins tearing it up on the track, and their professionalism in the pits. But even then, Mel knew there was something different about this kid. It was the way she watched the players, with an expert, almost appraising eye. Mel could see she took everything in, and it all came to light during her tryout. The entire tryout team tried to kill her, and she took it upon herself to redress the balance, wiping them out to a player, according to sources on the track and on the street - some permanently. That was no loss, Mel considered, as they were punks, burnouts and street metal that were sent to kill the killing machine. Vector should have known better, and it cost him... dearly, if you believed the rumors.

Then there was that mess near the derelict cathedral, the bounty laid on Hugo, and the word around the traps was that he was dead. Mel noted he wasn't around the track anymore, so it was probably true. It was so hard to get anything verified if you weren't there. People just didn't want to get involved.

And then the Battle Angel appeared on the track, right in the middle of the Second League season, and tore the place up. It was Alita, but not like she'd been before. It was as if a light had been doused within her. She was cold, and hard and deadly. The rumor mill said that Alita and Hugo had been an item, and she was taking his death pretty hard. Two weeks after her Second League debut, she rolled out to the start line with an all-new body, all shiny purple and chrome. Again rumors said it was top-notch work from Umba, her official tuner, and Doc Ido, who was retired from the track except when Alita needed something. Whatever the source of the new hardware, it looked really professional, and Alita played like a true Paladin. No one in the Second League could touch her, and Mel thought she may have got a little used to that, judging by the look on her face as she limped off the track and down onto pit lane.

Mel was pretty good at reading people. You had to be, in the security business. What Mel got from Alita s face and movements spoke volumes. She was moving quickly, for someone missing the bottom part of a leg, but at the same time, she was slightly slumping. Somewhere in her head, doubt was creeping in, Mel concluded. Her face was dominated by a scowl. She was good at scowling, but this one was a doozy. Her lips were drawn into a straight line, and her eyes darted around. Mel had seen this look many times before on people who were looking for something, or someone, to hit. That wasn't good.

Mel was moving toward her before he realized what he was doing. He'd become quite friendly with Alita over the past 2 months, and had even bet on her in her first game in Second League, and walked away with a fist full of big credit chips. But he'd never had to even reprimand her for improper or rowdy behavior. Now he might have to detain her, or even stun her out. This didn't sit well with him - and he wasn't exactly sure why.

Alita was 10 yards away, with the sword she usually had clamped to her left arm detached and in her right hand - probably for balance - when she staggered slightly, swaying toward a pillar to her left, at the side of the entry ramp. Her eyes locked onto it, her fist clenched by her side, and in one rapid, fluid movement - punctuated with a guttural growl - she punched the corner out of the column, exposing the reo within and sending smashed fragments of concrete spraying through the air. Several small pieces hit Mel in the chest and bouncing off, to scatter across the entry ramp. Alita looked up at Mel coming toward her, some of the anger gone from her face as she realized what she'd done. She dropped the sword point to the ground, probably a disarming gesture which Mel was grateful for, and she turned her head slightly to hide one large, expressive eye behind the locks of her hair that hung down the right side of her face. Mel found the look adorable - something firmly at odds with the girl's vocation as an on-track combat monster - but he still had to do his job.

Mel slowed as he approached, and Alita stopped, probably expecting a reprimand. Instead, Mel stepped up beside her on her left, turned back, and put a supporting arm around her waist. Alita accepted the assist, putting her left hand on Mel s right shoulder, and he proceeded to help her quicken her pace towards her waiting pit. Alita's torso felt solid and well armored, but not overly heavy. She was built for speed and precision, not overwhelming power.

"I saw what they did," Mel said, his expression clipped. "It was not cool, ganging up on you like that in a cutthroat match." Alita's expression softened a little. "But," Mel added, his tone firm, "that's still no reason to try to take the pits out by breaking the supporting columns!" Alita's posture stiffened a little, but relaxed again when Mel chuckled. "But y'know, that's what it's like in Pro League. Some will do anything to win, even if it's just a number they want to wear."

"It's not just a number," Alita replied, a little absently as they approached her pit, "it's _my_ number. And I'll teach that to anyone I have to, in whatever way I have to." Her face hardened again.

"Just think about it this way," Mel said, as they turned past the big purple and grey 99 Alita banner hanging down next to Alita's pit, "you were always so disappointed with the level of skill in Second League. Now you have opponents worth your time fighting. Enjoy that, at least!"

"Huh," Alita said, looking Mel right in the eyes for a moment, and then looking away as a pit tech took her weight from the Security Guard and helped her settle into her personally-tailored pitting brace. Alita looked up at Mel when she was settled. "Thank you, Mel," she said, a genuine smile gracing her face. Mel marveled at how her eyes danced with light when she did that. "You've helped me more than you know."

"A pleasure as always, ma'am," Mel said, inclining his head before turning to walk back to his security station, "but please, no more breaking the pits!"

"OK, OK," Alita responded, and chuckled quietly as she watched him go until her pit banner blocked her view. She had been thinking about this all wrong. She did want true combat challenges - needed them, in fact, to get flashbacks to her old life, her old training. Without them, she wasn't sure she could improve on the Panzer Kunst techniques she already remembered. Somewhere in the back of her head, she was sure there were so many more and better fighting moves she could relearn. She just had to dig them out!

"Finally warriors worth fighting," Alita said, more to herself than anyone else. She d been coasting too long. She would need to be a razor's edge of purest Martian steel for the trials to come. She would rise to the challenge, and complete the mission. But first, she needed a new leg!

"Umba!" Alita hollered, "get me a new leg - fast!"

"And two minutes into the second half, Alita s lead had been all but devoured by Ajakutty, putting him into a prime position to win their personal bet and take the number 99 from Alita, and give Alita her first loss since she came to the game. It s unknown at this time what is keeping her in the pits, but it must be significant to stop her defending her favored number. Alita seems to be having almost as many mechanical issues as the other highly-billed and conspicuously absent Paladin, Jashugan.

We d really like to see either one of them out on the track to wipe the smug grin off Ajakutty s face, in light of his dirty double-teaming of Alita with Bargerald. Besides a few points nabbed by Crimson Wind after the jump for the second half, Ajakutty has had the lion's share of the motorball.

Will it continue?"

_The announcer actually sounded worried,_ Alita thought, as she tried to sit still while her chance to keep the 99 - her number - on her shoulder slipped away.

"Uh there," Umba said, lifting his head up from the tangle of sensor couplings at her left hip. Umba had been a short man even before he lost the bottom half of his torso in a mechanical accident and had it replaced with a tracked unit. Most people preferred cybernetic legs, but Umba needed the extra stability and power to enable him to heft the bulk of a multi-armed precision operators suit that stayed contained in the back of the tracked unit until needed. It was unfurled now, and the extra arms with tools, clamps, probes, and grippers worked furiously at Alita's left hip. The cybernetic visual enhancements that Umba perpetually wore across his eyes dialed in on her misfiring neural connections. "Try initiating the leg again, Alita," Umba said, his tone flat as his mind was focused on the job at hand. "You'll know if it works, it will sting a bit." Alita concentrated, but it didn't seem like the sensor net was connected, or if it was, it wouldn't initialize.

"Nothing," Alita said for what must have been the dozenth time. "If we don t get this leg working soon, I m going to lose my 99!"

"I'm really sorry, Alita," Umba said, his tone slightly admonishing, "but I did ask you to fit the spare appendages and give them a chance to sync with your core before the new season started." Alita turned her head to hide the right side of her face in her hair.

"Um, yeah," Alita said, looking down at something that was suddenly extremely interesting on the pit floor, then up again through the loose strand of hair that often occupied her forehead, "I never really thought I d get that damaged that I'd need them."

Umba rolled his optics - which was exaggerated to the point of comical due to the artificial nature of his eyes - and then got back to work. Tools and probes were zooming in and out at Alita's hip when Dyson Ido came rushing into the pits, barely acknowledging the surprised and happy greetings from the motorball pit crews, who all knew him well.

"What s the holdup?" Ido demanded, waving his arms at the mess of tools, parts and diagnostic equipment haphazardly spread around the bay. "Alita needs to be out there. Her number is on the line!" Alita fought back tears as a happy smile threatened to sneak onto her face. Of course, everyone in the pit knew what was at stake, but the love and concern in Ido's voice almost overpowered her.

"Father," Alita said, reaching up to grip his waving arm to still it, "Umba is doing everything he can, but this is my doing. I didn't sync the spare limbs with my core, and they are refusing to do so in any sort of hurry. Do you have any ideas to help Umba? Any at all?" She tried not to plead, and almost succeeded.

"Oh, is that all?" Dyson said as he rolled up his sleeves. "We had that happen all the time when I was a tuner." He grabbed a set of interface cables and kneeled down to pick up the discarded, damaged leg. "When that happened, we just linked the old leg to the new one and copied the sync data from the old to the new. Like this. It's not perfect, but it'll get you out on the track soonest." Within a few seconds, Dyson had the old and new legs wired, up, and stood, a little shakily, wiping his brow with the back of his arm. "I forgot how warm it got down here..."

Ido's gaze fell on the frenetic activity 2 bays over, and he lost his train of thought. Alita glanced up at his silence, saw him gazing intently, and lifted herself a few inches in her pitting brace, to stare in the same direction. Father and daughter saw Jashugan, his head lolling to one side, his cranium cracked open and cables running from his temporal lobe. There was arguing and shouting coming from the bay, and then a tech drew a privacy curtain across, blocking the view.

Alita and Ido looked at each other. Ido could see there was something significantly wrong with Jashugan, and not the mechanical issues that had been reported. They were treating something... neurological. Alita saw someone she was really beginning to admire not competing. She didn't want that, she wanted to play him, and win!

"Do you think he s OK?" Alita asked Ido, and he gave her his trademark 'I don't know how to answer that' look.

Ido was about the say something to Umba when a cry of 'Yes!' went up from down the pit lane, and then Jashugan, fully kitted, helmeted, and looking 100% the unbeatable Paladin came roaring past Alita's pit moments later, heading back out onto the track. Alita and Ido looked at each other again, Alita looking pleased, while Ido looked concerned.

"It's transferring," Umba said, drawing the other s attention back to their own pit bay, "but slowly, due to the damage to the leg. I d say we ll have it done in 10 minutes."

"You've got 6," said Dyson and Alita in unison, and they almost burst out laughing, except this was no laughing matter.

"If Jashugan goes straight after Ajakutty," Alita said, "and I expect he will, then I have to be back out on the track in approximately 5 minutes and 52 seconds, or I'll not be able to stop him outscoring me and winning."

"We'll get you out there in time," Umba and Dyson said simultaneously this time, and that did bring a modest smile to Alita s face.


	5. Chapter 4 - The Will of Warriors I

Chapter 4 - The Will of Warriors I

Alita watched, very nearly in awe, as the pit monitor showed Jashugan exit Pit Lane by vaulting the dividing fence. She saw the skill in the move: a supple, fluid motion that maintained all of his ground speed while adding more from his extraordinary arm and shoulder actuators. From the angle of the camera, Alita's accelerated reactions picked out the harsh, overhead tracklights reflecting off the gold ribbing of Jashugan's armor and across the swept-back faceplate of the rapidly approaching Ajakutty. The glare likely blinding him to what was coming next.

Right leg cocked back, the other extended, Jashugan hit 'Kutty in the side torso with a resounding clash of metal and polymers. Those in the crowd that weren't blinking at that moment erupted with an astonished 'Ohhhh!' The merciless blow slid both Paladins across the track, but 'Kutty's greater speed and momentum won out, and they both continued on down the main straight. As 'Kutty began to twist and fall, Jashugan gripped the opposing Paladin's throat, steering him down to meet the track as it approached them at nearly 120 mph. Ajakutty had spun almost 180° by the time the track reached up to claim them, but that didn't stop the blurring tarmac from sparking ferociously as it wrenched the green and black arm from the right side of 'Kutty's track body. Impossibly, Ajakutty's left hand still clung hard onto the motorball, which probably stopped it from careening wildly away as the pair hit the surface of the track. Jashugan must have known about the ball bearings across 'Kutty's back, Alita mused, as she saw that was the surface of his opponent Jashugan had steered onto the track. Alita winced at the sound of the landing, and the way 'Kutty's head met the track surface, the rear-facing point of his helmet shearing off in a cascade of sparks. There'd be some concussion in that one for sure, not to mention a good number of the ball bearings that were previously in 'Kutty's back were smashed out of their brackets by the uncontrolled landing, and went shooting out, away from the pair of tangled Paladins like slugs from a wildly-rotating gun.

The back wheel of Jashugan's extended left wheelfoot was running on the track over 'Kutty's right shoulder, and as the prone Paladin looked up at him, Jashugan plucked the motorball out of 'Kutty's remaining green and black hand, tipped his helmeted head to his downed opponent, and then explosively uncoiled his folded leg that was against 'Kutty's chest. The force of the leap shot Jashugan back onto his wheels, and he sped off down the track to cheers from the astonished onlookers. Ajakutty, who had been winning the race until that moment, wobbled and wiped out, though without most of the speed he'd built up coming down the main straight.

"Ohhh, and there it is, folks!" the announcer rhapsodized, sounding far more animated than he had for the past few minutes. "Jashugan is over his mechanical issues and is back with his trademark style, having extracted the motorball from Ajakutty with an amazing tackle and takedown, and is off down the track like last night's vindaloo!" The crowd cheered, equal parts happy to see Jashugan taking up the motorball and the game not ending in a boring, home run by someone as conceited as Ajakutty. "Jashugan has a lot of points to make up, but he still has the remaining hoops left in the match to do it. I hope you punters haven't thrown away your Jashugan betting slips just yet!"

Alita's acute hearing picked up the sounds of arguing and scuffles breaking out in the nearby stands, probably over Jashugan betting slips that had indeed been hastily discarded too soon into the race.

'_Fools,'_ Alita thought, blowing the loose strand of hair away from her eyes with a quick puff, '_they still won't win with those slips. I'm not out of this race yet!'_

...

Jashugan had just completed his first lap, and closed three points on the leaders as Ajakutty was hauled back past Alita's pit and into his own service area. He was venting smoke from burnt wiring, and leaking hydraulic fluid and blue cyberblood, his head lolling to one side. Alita watched the downed Paladin with mild satisfaction, but knew they'd be quick-swapping limbs and replaceable components as fast as only a well funded, finely-tuned pit crew could, and pumping Ajakutty with racing stims and neuro-stabilizers. He'd be back out on the track soon enough. That realization cooled her satisfaction slightly. She was feeling antsy - she needed to be up and back out on the track. Alita promised herself she would never be slack about pre-prep again.

"Um," Alita started, her tone sweet and gentle, not really wanting to disrupt her two hard-working tuners, but still needing to know, "how's it going?" Both Umba and Ido were head down, focusing on getting her back out on the track, but Umba spoke first.

"There! I've managed to restore several mainline connections in your damaged leg, Alita," he said with tired exhilaration. "The end of the transfer should go much quicker, now. A little over three minutes remaining."

Alita thought for a moment. "That's cutting it fine." Both Umba and Ido shrugged.

"Pre-sync your replacements next time?" Umba suggested, shrugging.

"Yeah, yeah," Alita responded, a little testily. Ido had been running a scanner over Alita's track body while he was waiting for the transfer to finish, as there was little he could do to speed up the process any further. He flipped the screen of the scanner closed, put it down and looked up at his daughter.

"Alita, there is significant microfracturing in the alloy of your left hand." Ido's look over his glasses was very paternal. "When did that happen? You didn't wipe out when 'Kutty took your leg..."

"Ah," Alita tried not to hide behind her hair, "oh, you know, just general wear and tear. Motorball is a heavy contact sport, after all…" She really didn't want to have to tell her father she punched out a column while boiling with anger.

"Well, whatever happened, there is no time to replace it," Ido said, and Alita could sense his feeling of inadequacy as he spoke. "We'd have the same syncing issue as your leg there." Alita reached up and put the aforementioned hand on Ido's arm. She could just make out some minor crazing across the ridges in the back of the palm.

"It's OK, Father," she assured him. "I'll be fine. I just need to get back out on that track, ASAP!"

Ido responded with a noncommittal "Hrrmm," and then went to speak to a support crew member quietly at the back of the bay.

While she waited, to stop herself breaking something important in frustration, Alita watched the pit monitor, showing Jashugan hurtling through the far side of the circuit. Her greatest rival was being closely followed by three Paladins; Claymore, Zariki, and Skaramasakus. They were closing on Jashugan as a pack, but only inching closer at 120 mph, as he was a superior skater, with a highly-tuned power plant and lightning reflexes. But it was the weight of the motorball that gave his pursuers the opportunity to close.

Alita gazed at the screen, the highly-trained, combat analysis side of her brain working overtime. She picked up every little nuance of the confrontation, and stored the details away for later use in strategy and improvisation. It was almost like she was there, on the track, following along with the combat, and it eased her jangled nerves to be in the moment again, even if by proxy.

Claymore reached his quarry first, taking corners so hard to catch Jashugan first that the caterpillar tracks that powered his wheelfeet left rubber marks on the tarmac. Exuding confidence, Claymore powered in and closed the last few yards, but then the hunter became the hunted.

Jashugan cut left around a spike in the slalom tube as Claymore moved to attack him, then snapped quickly back across the track and spun 180 degrees as Clay drew back to strike. The rotors on Jash's right arm shot sparks as they chewed through the haft of Claymore's weapon, and took the hand for good measure. The shredded components, long, shiny, metallic fingers, and the spiked head of the now-defunct melee weapon went clattering and clanging off the tube surface behind the embattled pair, scattering the other trailing Paladins. Claymore, suddenly bereft of a weapon, hesitated for mere moments, which was more than long enough for Jashugan to follow up by swinging the motorball into Claymore's midriff. The contact produced a resounding clang in the confined space. Claymore was lifted off his wheels by the blow, his shiny armor buckling and bowing, and then Claymore tumbled away behind Jashugan as he accelerated away again. As expected in a cutthroat match, Zariki and Skara went up the sides of the tube to avoid their downed opponent, and then surged on to take their turn at the burgeoning champ.

_Goes for weak points: hands, weapons hafts, and probably knees as well, _Alita thought, committing the moves to memory. She expected to be facing these tactics in a very short time.

Both Zariki and Skaramasakus attacked Jashugan as they exited the slalom and had more room to maneuver. With a roar of his powerful engines, Zariki spun, swinging both his scythes, the leading one reversed, at Jashugan from his rear left, while Skaramasakus came up on Jashugan's other side, his power plant also redlining, shields out in front, ready to hit and lift what was left. The two attacking Paladins moved together quickly, but Jashugan was no longer there, having braked hard as his enemies committed. The two large cyborgs came together, their combined masses and kinetic energy being more than enough to create an impressive Paladin mashup. With a buckling of armor plates, popping of rivets, and the screaming of tortured metal, Zariki's two scythes ended up embedded deep within Skaramasakus's shields. Bleeding trackspeed sharply, the careening pile-up was easy for Jashugan to avoid as he sped up again, zipping past the obstruction and on to the next scoring hoop. He made it look all too easy.

"And with Jashugan expertly countering attacks from Claymore, Zariki, and Skaramasakus, and suffering only a slight drop in lap time, Jash is concentrating on points, not fights. Jashugan is a real pro, and he knows he needs to catch up to the leaders before the points to do so are gone," the Announcer's voice boomed over the loudspeaker, echoed a quarter second later from the pit monitor. Alita was just looking away from the monitor, not wanting to watch Jashugan equal her points score, when Esdoc came barrelling into the pit area.

Her manager looked stressed, almost haunted. The unusually bleached, practically caucasian skin around his eyes and between his nose and lips - which was the result of removal of cybernetic enhancements he'd had when he was an up-and-coming Motorball star - was beaded with a fine layer of perspiration and looked even more at odds with the rest of his swarthy complexion. Esdoc's eyes were sunken, and his cyberbody moved even more spasmodically than usual. He probably hadn't noticed yet, but Esdoc wasn't far away from a Terminal Frost attack - a degenerative neurological condition caused by the terrible accident that ended his Motorball career, and required regular doses of the medicine Termease to keep in check.

"WHAT'S THE HOLDUP?" Esdoc demanded, the headset he used in the manager's box bouncing around on his neck with the force of his assertion. He glared first at Umba, who was used to it, and then at Ido, with a look on his face that suggested he didn't like to see someone who claimed to be an ex-tuner working in the pit of his star - and only - Paladin. "Alita needs to be out there scoring!"

"We know!" Alita, Ido, and Umba responded in unison, with varying tones of frustration, apology, and embarrassment. Esdoc was taken aback by the unified response, and then his left hand began to shake uncontrollably.

"Uggh, Terminal Frost," Esdoc growled through gritted teeth that were holding the cap of the injector he plunged into a purpose-built port in the jittering wrist. Within a few moments of the medicine's application, the shaking began to subside. "I heard on the way down that 'Kutty is nearly wheel-ready," Esdoc continued after a moment, breathing deeply to calm himself. "How long until the new leg can be attached?"

"95 seconds, at the current transfer speed," Umba replied. "The transfer has to be completed first to connect safely, but we need to get her out there before 'Kutty gets too far ahead and takes the 99."

Alita's eyes widened and she huffed a breath out through her nose. She flicked her head, clearing the hair from around her face, and glared at the three men around her, eyes smoldering. Her voice was low and dangerous.

"Get. Me. Out. There… Now! Attach the leg."

...

"And Jashugan is slowing, looks like the rear driving wheel of his right wheelfoot suffered some damage from debris in that last tangle. He's going to have to pit to have that sorted, but in coming around to the pits, he's going to pick up his ninth point, which puts him first place for the race. He'll only be pitting for a short time, and given that there are still six hoops left before the end of this match, the win could still go to any of the top point scorers," the Announcer proclaimed. "But you've got to be in it to win it, and with Jash pitting, none of them will be…."

...

"This is dangerous, Alita," Ido said, concern writ large across his fatherly features. "The feedback could scramble the sync with your other limbs, not to mention the intense agony it will cause…" Alita looked up into her father's eyes, her own large, brown orbs pleading.

...

"With the three lead scorers off the track," the Announcer continued, "Alita's fans, who call themselves the Alita Army, are getting vocal!" The chant of 'Ah-leee-ta! Ah-leee-ta!' was getting louder around Pit Straight. "They have faith that their Battle Angel will rejoin the fight in time, and defend her number, the vaunted 99! But can she do it, before the scoring hoops tick away?"

...

"Father, please. I conquered physical pain a long time ago," Alita didn't know how she knew that she just did, "and I can't let my fans down. I won't go down sitting here doing nothing!" Alita's hands were gripping the arms of the pitting cradle as if she was about to lever herself up and go without the leg. Ido nonchalantly put a hand on her shoulder to stop her doing just that.

"If we don't, Alita might not be able to catch 'Kutty, let alone Jashugan," Umba said, hoisting the still transferring leg into position and enabling the power ratchets on his repair frame arms two and four with a pair of click-clacks. "And if we attach the leg early and it doesn't work, well it has the same effect as option one, doesn't it?" Ido rubbed his chin with his free hand, considering, his brow furrowed in concern, while Esdoc looked on over Ido's shoulder, nodding slowly at Umba.

Further discourse was cut short by the roaring of a misfiring engine as Ajakutty zoomed past Alita's pit and back out onto the track. They all turned to watch this worsening of Alita's fortunes.

Alita looked closely at her immediate rival, the man that wanted the 99, her number. While his limbs looked sharp, shiny, and ready for action, his torso was a patchwork of filler, tracktape, and newly swapped in parts next to rattling port covers and cracked fairings. Ajakutty looked somewhat suboptimal, but at least _he _was back out on the track.

"Do it," Ido said a moment later, as the clock on the transfer hit 40 seconds. "She needs every moment she can get."

The sound of Umba's power ratchets screwing in the bolts to attach the top of the replacement leg to her hip was high-pitched and piercing, but it was nothing compared to the pain that flooded Alita's brain as the neural connections linked. It mingled with the pain of her loss, becoming an almost living thing, as her mouth flung open in a silent scream. But she wasn't there anymore...

She was on a plain of red sand, stretching off to the horizon. Mars…


	6. Chapter 5 - The Will of Warriors II

Chapter 5 - The Will of Warriors II

The harsh, unforgiving, martian winds blew across the red sand plain. Further out, it was punctuated by rifts and crags, and dust devils danced in the heat haze. Alita marveled at the view for a few moments, but then recognized that there was a great presence behind her. She slowly turned to see that she was at the foothills of a giant red mountain, so massive it was still far off in the distance. The peak was so mammoth it filled up the entire northern horizon, and it soared so impossibly high, disappearing into the grey, static-colored clouds that hung at a uniform level, like an eggshell across the sky. But this mountain wasn't the focus of the moment. The voice of her Lehrer, Gelda, sounded heavy in her ears.

"Today, you continue your journey on the road to mastering _Panzer Kunst_. Every day has a beginning, and today you will begin with the training technique, _Schatten Forgen_. You have seen it demonstrated, and have mastered the richtung. Now it is time to test your knowledge against each other. Begin."

She couldn't see her Lehrer, but she looked to her right and saw a lythe blonde girl, somewhere in her early teens, slightly taller, right eye natural, the left one a convincing cybernetic replacement, grinning mischievously at her and sizing her up.

"C'mon, Yoko," the blonde girl said, and she knew somehow this was her childhood friend, Erica, and she was called Yoko in this place. "If you don't make a move, I'll shadow you all the way to Earth!"

She moved, and this Erica did likewise. The Shadow Battle began...

...

Crimson Wind, her red and silver livery sparkling under the tracklights, swooped in as she completed a lap and scooped up the motorball without slowing, from where Jashugan had dropped it when he entered the pits. She shot off down the straight to the cheers of the crowd, her speed the only thing that helped her narrowly avoid an attack from Ajakutty as he exited the pits, his chainsaw arms swinging wildly in an attempt to get any contact on the red rocket that was number 7. She dropped into a squat, still at full speed, spun away from the attack and then sprung up, angling perfectly for the banked corner at the end of the straight.

But Ajakutty was right behind her, determined to catch her up, and the extra weight of the motorball was slowing her down enough that he was making headway.

"And there's number 7, Crimson Wind scooping up the motorball at Pit Lane, and narrowly avoiding an attack from the returning Ajakutty," the Announcer proclaimed, as Crimson Wind practically flew through the corners to the first hoop of the course. "And she scores her third point for the game. But here comes Ajakutty, moving in for another attempt…"

Ajakutty powered in on the entry into a sharp, banked bend. He swung a low leg sweep that Crimson Wind easily jumped, but the landing was difficult because of the camber of the track. In the moment she worked to readjust her wheels to a more balanced footing, Ajakutty attacked again, his hands shooting sparks as he used them for balance on the tarmac, producing a kick to the midriff that would flatten a buffalo. Crimson Wind swung in, down the camber of the turn to avoid the kick, but realised too late that it was a feint! 'Kutty closed his leg around Crimson Wind's torso, and the chainsaw around his thigh spun into action. Crimson Wind struggled to escape as the blades cut deep into her midriff, spraying shattered parts and sparks across the track. Her torso came loose from her hips in a spray of fluids and dislodged parts. 'Kutty snatched the motorball out of her hand as he straightened, and Crimson Wind tumbled out of the turn in two halves.

"Oh and there you have it, folks," the Announcer enthused. "Ajakutty might have been downed by Jashugan, but he's certainly not out! It's Crimson Wind who's out, sawn in two by the leg blades and Asian Arts of Ajakutty. Truly a champion amongst motorba…" The Announcer came up short. "But what's that? There's another Paladin closing on 'Kutty at high speed. Let me see if I can get a clear look… YES! YES fans, it's her, it's number 99, Ahhh-leee-taaa!" The crowd buoyed with thunderous excitement. "Finally out of the pits and ready for some payback. This is going to be good!"

_Good? _thought Alita, rounding the bend past the remains of Crimson Wind and spotting Ajakutty disappearing around the next bend, _I'm going to make him wish he'd never been 'borged!_

'Kutty grimaced, glancing over his shoulder as he approached the second hoop, and saw a purple and silver blur closing on him. _That snot-nosed broad just won't give in and recognize I'm the better Paladin, _Ajakutty thought, adjusting the weight of the motorball to power through a bend and into the slalom tube. _Well, I'll just have to show her, twice in one match. She'll never live that down, and I'll have the number 99 that is rightfully mine!_ Ajakutty's grin was cruel as he began plotting.

"And that's another point for Ajakutty," the Announcer proclaimed as 'Kutty crossed the second hoop, "bringing him into equal lead position with Jashugan. Alita has to make up three points, with four hoops left in the match. Can she do it?"

"Can she do it?" Alita mumbled to herself as she set up her attack vector on 'Kutty, "if I can climb Olympus Mons, I can surely beat down some upstart, spikey-limbed pretender to the 99!" Alita dropped her stance and shot forward out of a turn and into the slalom tube, no time to consider how she knew she'd climbed the largest, extinct volcano in the solar system. "Game on!"

The pair slalomed around the randomly placed spikes in the tubular part of the track. Ajakutty's track speed dropped despite his best efforts, with his concentration split between keeping obstacles between Alita and himself, and not running into any that were ahead. This suited Alita perfectly, as she positioned herself for a run up the sidewall as the tube bent to the right.

As they hit the bend, Alita shot up the wall and used the curve of the roof to guide her towards her prey, the edge of the Damascus Blade trailing sparks where she used it to fine-tune her trajectory. Ajakutty was taken by surprise, having just glanced forward to check for obstacles around the bend, and it was all he could do to change course as Alita dropped on him. He managed to use the motorball and the whirring teeth of his right arm to deflect the edge of the Damascus Blade as Alita leaned into it, dropping her left arm on her foe. Landing just behind her target, Alita pivoted 180 degrees so she was skating backward mere inches from Ajakutty, and used the rotational force of her turn to attack 'Kutty's left side with her blade. He managed to recognize the intent in time, and again deflected martian steel with whirring blades on that arm.

Ajakutty was suddenly being attacked from behind, and this wasn't something he liked at all. He accelerated suddenly, then spun quickly, using the mass of the motorball as a club, swinging it behind him to collect Alita before she could dodge. It was a lightning-fast move. It should have smashed her off her wheels. But when the motorball got there it swung on through empty air and he ended up facing forward again, skating along seemingly alone, the motorball still held out in front of him. He glanced around, confused. Did she wipe out? Surely not.

"Where are you, you tired old man's junkyard retread from a washed-up team?" Ajakutty goaded her, feeling more confident now the Battle Angel was away from him. If Alita was still dogging him, and he could anger her into making a mistake and… he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Ajakutty twisted right to look behind him, and all he could see was part of a purple and silver leg and wheelfoot, heel to heel with his own. He quickly twisted the other way, as he saw the same on his left side. The bitch was right behind him, sticking to his back, like a shadow! He accelerated forward, ducking left and right, but he couldn't shake her. He was starting to panic. They were coming up on the next bend, and beyond that, another scoring ring. Ajakutty slid the motorball under his left arm, ready to take the bend and shake the bitch off, except that must have been what she was waiting for, because the motorball wasn't under his arm anymore...

It had been easy to find purchase on Ajakutty's torso, with all the bent and damaged ports and the filler and tape. Alita kept away from those chainsaw arms, not wanting to lose some much-needed fingers for holding onto the motorball, once 'Kutty finally made a mistake and gave her the opportunity. And then he did. It was almost like he fed her the ball. She took it and repeated the move on him that he had tried on her seconds before, but he wasn't a master of _Schgatten Forgen. _Her spin was perfect, the ball catching him on the left arm which deformed and buckled, teeth from the chainsaw scattering across the track as the motorball continued, slamming him into the banked curve and macerating the right arm. Sparks, ball bearings and chain teeth flew in all directions as Alita rode her quarry to a stop, the motorball released and momentarily forgotten.

Astride Ajakutty's torso, the damaged Paladin totally at her mercy, Alita's face was a picture of wild wrath and she leaned over him. She had her left elbow swung up, leaning down on it and the Damascus Blade as it bit into Ajakutty's faceplate. The prone Paladin's eyes were wide with terror as he watched the blade slowly descend through his face shield towards his goateed face. At an inch away from his nose, Alita gripped the handle of the blade with her right hand, and a blue flame danced along the length of the weapon, singeing the synthskin of his face and melting the face shield further.

If Ajakutty could have soiled himself, he would have. _She's going to kill me…_

Ajakutty stared into those beautiful brown eyes, massive when so close to his own, and saw a heartless killer about to finish him. Her teeth were grinding together, lips drawn back in a feral snarl. This was no Angel. This was the Devil come to collect on him. If his arms would have worked he'd have tried to shield his eyes from this ignominious end... and then he saw it. The deep well of sadness in those kaleidoscope eyes. Of knowledge, known and forgotten, of trials, of pain, and of triumph. Hers was an old soul, and one that set goals, and achieved them, no matter the cost.

She must have seen something in him, too, for her eyes cleared, and her face relaxed. She yanked the Damascus Blade from his face shield, and leaned back as the blue fire on the sword flickered and died. Further back from him now, he could take in her whole face as she spoke.

"You say one more disrespectful word about me, my team or my Father, and I will end you. And the 99... it's MINE!" The last word echoed in the slalom tube like a gunshot. Alita was back on her wheels in an instant, as 'Kutty could hear a pack of Paladins approaching through the tunnel behind them.

"Stay down, if you know what's good for you," Alita concluded, pointing at her defeated foe, her tone as hard as martian steel. "If I see you again in this race, you're dead." Ajakutty didn't doubt it. She sped off, snatching up the motorball from where it lay while still accelerating.

Ajakutty lay there, breathing fast, waiting for his team's Scavengers to arrive. His arms were trashed, so he had no way to get to his wheelfeet anyway. He'd been totally defeated by the Battle Angel. Ajakutty would take her advice to heart, and then some.

"And using some moves we've not seen on the track before, Alita totally wrecks Ajakutty, and - if she's staying true to her second league form - scared the piss out of him as well, before taking off with the motorball and leaving 'Kutty lying on the track, beaten. Don't mess with this little lady if you know what's good for you, folks!"

The cheering of the crowd overcame even the voice of the Announcer for a moment, and he waited for the cacophony to die down.

"But Alita still has an uphill battle on her hands. She needs 3 points to equal Jashugan and Ajakutty, who sit tied for first place, with 4 points left on the track. Surely Jash will be back out before those hoops tick down, and Alita still has to beat Ajakutty's score to keep her 99. She needs all of those points!

And here comes the Paladin pack!"

Alita zoomed through the turns as fast as she dared. She knew she needed all the points to win the match. But she was sure she'd see Jashugan as she passed pit lane. After some seriously quick pit turnarounds, she had Claymore, Skaramaticus, Juggernaut and Zariki closing on her. If she wasn't careful, she was going to be the meat in a Motorball sandwich. Alita crossed the start/finish line and got one point closer to her goal. She ran wide of Pit Lane exit, but it was quiet. It felt like the calm before the storm. A very bad storm…

"And as Alita draws one point closer to Jash and 'Kutty in first place, the pack are on her, and… here comes Jashugan!" the Announcer's voice rose to fever pitch. "He's out of the pits and trailing the pack by only a few seconds. This is gonna get messy!"

Alita took a deep breath, centering herself. She was ready, as Zariki came thundering in on the next turn. He was all-powerful petrochemical engines and sything blades. He attacked on the turn, as she expected, zooming in and trying to cleve her through the midriff with his left blade arm. Alita was ready, jumping into the air and spinning, running her wheels over the flat of the blade that Zariki was trying to bisect her with, and using the extra momentum of the motorball to help drive the Damascus Blade through the control lines behind his head shield. The metal parted like butter, wires fizzing and sparking as she left a smooth gash in the armored surface. She hit the track behind the now careening Paladin, and swung quickly around him, picking up speed again as Zariki tottered and fell over. There was a shower of sparks and the howl of tortured metal as he ground to a halt, and at the back of the dwindling pack, Jashugan had to jump the prone cyborg as he worked hard to catch his prey. The crowds in the stands bayed for more carnage.

"Zariki goes down in a screaming heap, no match for Alita's speed and precision," the Announcer crooned. "Who will be next to taste the Damascus Blade?"

It turned out to be Juggernaut, his bulk closing in behind Alita like a nuclear train just after the fireworks jump. He rolled up behind her, grinder and cutter arms flailing at her back in a maddened attempt to put her down. But Juggernaut's weapons found only empty air. Alita had dropped into a deep squat, her left leg out for stability into the next turn, still holding the motorball in one hand, and something else in the other. A piece of heavy-duty faring that she'd torn from Zariki before his fall. Juggernaut looked down and focused on the squatting Battle Angel, skating backward in front of him at high speed. He saw her grinning up at him, and then she plunged the section of sharp-ended faring into the rubber of his right front driving wheel. Alita swerved away on the bank of the turn as the faring reached the wheel guard and the driving wheel in question disintegrated. The exploding fragments smashed into Juggernaut's other wheels, with a cascade effect that had the massive cyborg wiping out in a shower of smashed fragments, flaming limbs and the sound of a hundred angry cats fighting. Alita turned, rising to her full height as she pirouetted to face forward again, and powered on towards the finish line.

"And there goes Jugger, as Alita picks up the third last point of the match, now one behind the leaders. I guess the big guy was no match for the small girl. But when that girl's our Battle Angel, all bets are off!" the Announcer sounded almost jovial. "So who's next, boys?"

That's what Alita was wondering as she shot down the main straight, past where Ido had retaken his seat next to Gerhad. Alita risked a glance his way, and saw him sitting bolt upright, his eyes wide, and his left hand clutched in Gerhad's right. _I wonder if he'll ever get used to this? _Alita mused as she reached the end of the straight and shot around the first bend for the last time. Claymore and Skaramaticus were moving up on her, but neither looked to want to attack. _Good, _thought Alita, _they are finally learning. But I can't let them wait until Jashugan joins the party, or it's three big guys vs one small girl. _Almost _fair odds, and we can't have that!_

Following the doctrine of 'the best defense is a good offense,' Alita slammed the Motorball into the track. The ever-spinning nobs on the ball bit and ground at the surface, as Alita leaped into the air, balancing above the motorball like some sort of extreme gymnast. The motorball decided that Claymore would be her target by the way it threw her in his direction. Flipping her torso down toward the track, Alita used her rotational energy to lift the motorball off the track and fling it, and herself still doggedly holding on, towards Claymore.

But Claymore had seen this move before, and he was ready, lifting his weapon to deflect the ball. Alita could read that he was going to try to collect her on the backswing, so she yanked the motorball to Claymore's left, and as they went past, she slashed at the back of his left leg with the Damascus Blade.

The motorball hit the tarmac, and Alita let go of it with her left hand, using her momentum to spin herself and the ball around so she was facing forwards again. She then swung her body down, planting her wheelfeet wide, and fighting the bucking of the motorball, lifted it up and accelerated away.

Claymore didn't fare as well. Having lost control of his left wheelfoot, it decelerated hard, and he was put into a rapid spin by the revs still running through functioning wheelfoot. Spinning wildly, he crossed the track and slammed into Skaramaticus, who was closing in to attack the ball holder and not expecting an attack from another quarter. Claymore lost his weapon, Skaramaticus had one arm pinned back by impact damage, and as happens regularly in situations like these, then became entangled.

But in the commotion, Jashugan had caught up. He shouldered the two, spinning Paladins out of the way with ease, and closed on Alita as the hapless pair wiped out and a rupturing fuel line on Skaramaticus produced a very satisfying fireball. The explosion echoed in the cheers of the crowd.

"Skaramaticus seems to like the tangled pile-ups tonight, folks. It's his second one with Claymore this match. Could there be a blossoming bromance in that blossoming fireball?" Alita almost expected the Announcer to laugh at his own joke. "But now we have the main event, Motorball fans. Jashugan vs Alita. It didn't look like we were going to see them square off against each other tonight, but here it is! Alita still needs one point to tie, and two to win. Get behind your favorite, Motorball fans! Let's hear it!"

The crowd were on their feet now, the Jashugan faithful cheering and waving placards about his greatness and his destiny to be Final Champion, while the Alita Army were chanting 'Ah-leee-ta! Ah-leee-ta!' and waving blow-up Damascus Blades and placards professing their love for their angelic cyborg and creative ways for her to decimate her opposition.

On the track, Jashugan bore down on Alita, his arm rotors spinning up, looking all business. In his shining, black and gold armor, he was an avatar of Motorball. But Alita was the tenacious scrapper, the Kunstler who would never give up. Alita was grinning maniacally as her Damascus Blade deflected Jashugan's arm rotors for the first of many times. Behind his helmet's faceplate, Jashugan's smile was less intense. He loved the thrill of Motorball combat, and fighting a strong, up-and-comer like Alita was certainly a joy, yet worries gnawed at the back of his mind. Since the accident… the same one that ended Esdoc's career, he'd suffered blackouts. Flatline Attacks was what the cyberdoctors called them, caused by the injury to his brain that fateful day.

While Jashugan looked like he'd recovered fully from the incident, and Esdoc had had his career ended by it, Jashugan knew that the only difference between them was a matter of time. The Flatline Attacks were happening more often, and it was getting harder for his crew to pull him out of it. They hadn't expected him to wake at all from the attack that took him out of the first half of the race he was now fighting to win.

He'd been told a Flatline Attack could kill him inside of twelve minutes. The last one had been eleven and a half. Jashugan knew all too well he couldn't become final champion if he was dead...

...and the distraction of his wayward thoughts nearly cost him his head!

Alita was actively retaliating to Jashugan's probing attacks as he looked for an opening to divest her of the motorball and leave her a smoking wreck trackside. His mind was not completely on the game at hand, and one of Alita's blocks of his rapidly spinning arm rotors turned into a repost. It was all Jashugan could do to whip his head back as the tip of that devilishly sharp blade she had attached to her left arm - rumor had it she'd taken it from the missing and disgraced Hunter-Warrior Zapan, and that it was of Martian manufacture - cut a shallow gouge across his helmet. The active sensors in the headgear sparked and died, and Jashugan had to do the only sensible thing he could with it - he tore it off. The helmet went clattering away behind the two racing Paladins, and Jashugan knew he was in for the challenge of his career thus far.

Alita had drawn away from Jashugan in the moments it had taken him to recover from her strike, and the two Paladins stared at each other over 4 yards at 150 mph, properly face to face and battling on the track for the first time. Alita looked to Jashugan like she was totally in her element. Born for the track. Her exuberance infected him, and his face lit up with a feral grin. Concerns were for the pits - this was time for MOTORBALL!

"And on the first exchange it looks like Alita has had the best of it," the Announcer exclaimed, as the crowd cheered and wailed in excitement. "She's still got the motorball, has passed the second last hoop, drawing equal with both Ajakutty and Jashugan, and has damaged Jashugan's helmet enough that he's discarded it. Just the jump, 2 turns and the straight to go, and 1 point that will decide the winner of this amazing match. Who will it be?"

The crowd at the stadium were on their feet, or at the very least, on the edge of their seats. All across Iron City, those that were not already watching the match rushed to their nearest screen to see the outcome of this titanic battle. In Zalem, the bulk of the population were glued to their screens, and one particular Zalemite, who didn't need a screen to watch the battle, leaned a little further over the railing as his chrome optics picked out the confrontation in ludicrous detail. His smile was self-satisfied and hungry for carnage. He hoped for more blood, and death, always more blood, and death… and heartbreak.

Alita was in her element. The grin on her face reflected the feeling of escape that the high-speed combat of Motorball gave her. It was a chance to step away from all the heartache and loss, time to dull all the emotional pain with frenetic action and to push her agenda to become Final Champion. Once she defeated Jashugan, that was…

...and her momentary lapse of focus nearly cost Alita the race.

Jashugan cut in, looking like he was going to go to the left side of the track for the fireworks jump, but then cut back hard, coming right at Alita, his arm grinders howling. He swung his arms out wide, then back in as if he meant to grind Alita's torso to shards between them. For once, Alita was a little slow off the mark, and did the only thing she could think of as the track disappeared from under her wheels as they jumped, walls of fireworks leaping up on either side. She thrust the motorball at Jashugan and used the opposing force to escape the range of his deadly weapons.

Jashugan must have been partially blinded by the gold firework columns flashing up all around him, as he continued on with his attack. Alita looked on in shocked surprise as his arm rotors clamped onto the sides of the motorball, and with a tortured howl of steel and a manly holler of presumed triumph, Jashugan's attack deformed, and then smashed the motorball into torn casing and shredded internal workings. The parts fell like rain across the track as Jashugan touched down, taking but a moment to realize his error.

Alita hit the track hard, taking the impact on her right shoulder and trailing sparks as a warning sigel lit up in her peripheral vision. She started to tumble, and the speed boost chip, recognizing her plight, went into overdrive. The world slowed, and Alita was able to achieve lift by pushing off from the track with her right hand. She flew and tumbled at 100 mph, straightening herself out instinctively thanks to the intense zero-G training of _Panzer Kunst_. She was almost amazed when she regained her wheelfeet, and wasted no time in accelerating forward to get out of Jashugan's attack zone.

"Wow, folks. I expect you didn't catch that, but slowmo shows me that Jashugan made an all-out attack on Alita during the jump, only to end up destroying the motorball instead. Alita hit the track hard but has miraculously managed to regain her wheels, and now these two Motorball Maniacs have to race to the replacement motorball, 50 yards from the finish line!" the Announcer sounded delirious. "The Paladin who carries the ball over the line will score the final point and win the game. It's all or nothing!"

Alita knew the rules. She was skating at top speed toward the main straight. Jashugan was right with her, but he wasn't angling to attack. This was a pure speed race, speed and timing to snatch the motorball off the pylon, and get it across the line without being bisected, or ground to pulp, or wiped out. _Just another day in the life of a Pro Paladin_, Alita thought, looking at Jashugan as they whipped along. His strong features were calm and his mouth held a hint of a smile. His skating rhythm was smooth. It was like he knew what she would do, and was already ready for it.

They took the turn into the main straight, neck and neck. The noise from the enraptured fans was deafening. Alita knew Ido would be standing, cheering her on, but she didn't look. Her entire concentration was on Jashugan. She calmed her breathing and reached into her training, centering herself, reading for the sudden stop at the end of the drop. She felt like she could almost see what Jashugan was going to do, half a second before he did it! Almost. And then the pylon was upon them.

She saw Jashugan reach out a lazy hand to grip the motorball, his arm rotors running at full tilt. Alita saw a slight vibration the rotors set up, putting off his reach by the barest fractions of an inch. But it was enough. She threw her arm out, tapping the motorball a fraction to the left. Jashugan's grip to snatch the ball faltered, knocking the ball off the pylon, rather than picking it up, and he had to decelerate lest he overshoot the finish line without the ball.

The new motorball bounced once, its nobs spinning hard, and jerked towards Alita! She snatched it as Jashugan came at her, but the ball was between them again and he didn't seem to want to attack directly lest he destroy another motorball and receive a penalty that would cost him the match. The line was closing on them rapidly, mere seconds away, and Alita had the motorball, but not securely. She grabbed it in another set of grip holes with her left hand, the two-handed grip giving up her opportunity to attack or defend. She went to draw the motorball away, but found she was unable to reel it in.

Jashugan had a grip on it on the far side! And he had an arm free. An arm that was coming for her, rotors buzzing like a swarm of angry bees!

Alita couldn't pull the motorball out of Jashugan's iron grip, but she could tilt it, angling the ball so the Damascus Blade took the blow from Jash's whirling rotors. Alita was concerned for its safety, but she needn't have bothered. It was her left hand that gave out first, sheering across the palm, the pressure of holding onto the ball and the sideways thrust and vibration of Jashugan's rotors shaking the hand to pieces.

Alita winced, but now had an arm free to fight back. The Damascus Blade, locked in it's mount on her left arm, meant she didn't need to hold it, and she used it to drive Jashugan's attacks back. They were at a stalemate again, but Jashugan took this lul in the combat to take a two-handed grip of the ball, ready to pull it out of Alita's one-handed grasp, or pull her off her wheels!

"Oh no you don't!" Alita yelled, clamping her fingers even tighter into the ball holes. She turned away from the ball, squatted down as low as she could, and slammed on her wheel brakes. Alarm sigels littered her peripheral vision for both her hands, and her entire right arm, as the yank of the sudden resistance caused one of Jashugan's hands to slip from its grip on the motorball. His arm flung out, the momentum causing the pair to start swinging around the ball. Smoke from the burning rubber of Alita's wheels obscured the scene as the pair of embattled Paladins, decelerating all the while, crossed the finish line.

The crowd hushed as they waited for the result.

Officials rushed in to help, extinguishers at the ready, and to ascertain the situation on the track. As the smoke cleared, two silhouettes became visible, standing either side of a circular object. It was Alita and Jashugan, both still holding onto the motorball with one hand each, facing each other, horizontally across the track so neither were in the lead.

When the crowd saw the situation, they lost their minds! The noise was deafening.

"And there you have it, folks," the Announcer had to yell over the cheering. "In the closest game I have ever seen on the Motorball circuit, Jashugan and Alita have fought each other to a standstill! I have the official result in, now, and as there is no way to ascertain if either Paladin crossed the line first with the motorball, one point is awarded to each, making the final result Alita and Jashugan tied on ten points each, with Ajakutty, retired from the race due to damage, on nine points!"

The cheering was like waves on the beach, tsunami waves!

"The tie on ten points puts Alita a mere one point ahead of Ajakutty, but it's enough for her to win their personal challenge. We knew she could do it, and the Battle Angel keeps her favored number 99!" Alita's fans screamed and cheered at this news, and Alita relaxed a little, at least one goal for the race met.

"I tell you, folks, if this is the level of play we'll see out of these two this season, it wouldn't surprise me if a Final Champion round is called before the end of the season. This is one match you'll be telling your kids about!"

Neither Jashugan or Alita were listening to the final pontification of the Announcer. They were staring at each other, across the ball, their minds awash with the thrill of competition. Alita was impressed no end by the mighty Paladin who stood before her, and while Jashugan was also impressed by his diminutive opponent, he was also concerned.

_Do I need more than I have to compete against this Battle Angel, this Alita, and win?_ He asked himself, smiling on the outside all the while. _And can I achieve that before my time runs out?_ He indicated to take the motorball, which she allowed. Jashugan put it down between them and then held out a right hand - as Alita's left was shattered and gone - to shake it. She had a firm, confident grip, and the sparkle of future battles in her eyes.

"Well played, Battle Angel," Jashugan said, and meant it. "I look forward to our future battles." Alita smiled back at him, yet he saw a haunting sadness in those big, brown eyes.

Jashugan smiled honestly this time, and waved Alita towards the winner's podium, which was quickly being reconfigured for two first-place positions. They walked together, the motorball forgotten, to the adulation of their fans.


	7. Chapter 6 - After the Crowds Depart

Jashugan leaned his back against the wall of the raw cement corridor and sighed, exhaling deeply to slow his heart rate. He was glad to finally be alone. His security was on the other side of the door he had just closed, holding back the horde of fans and reporters who just couldn't get enough of their 'hero.' While he reveled in the excitement and the competition on the track, the news carnival that surrounded it left Jashugan cold. However, he was ever the Pro Motorballer, so he put on a happy, confident smile, and spent the hours answering questions - as far as he was willing - shaking hands, posing for photographs, and generally kept his fans happy until he could engineer an opportunity to slip away. Still, it took a toll on him, and left him far more drained since his return after 'the accident.'

He remembered seeing Alita make her excuses and leave early, explaining to the disappointed masses that she had suffered damage that needed to be repaired. Beyond the missing left hand, she didn't seem particularly limited by whatever damage her right arm took in the landing after the last jump, and the tussle over the motorball at the finish line, so Jashugan figured it was more the overwhelming press of people after the match ended. She had probably never faced that sort of attention in Second League. Pro League was its own beast, as Alita was only just beginning to discover.

Jash pushed himself off the wall and turned to roll down the long, quiet corridor, deep under the stadium seating. The tunnel led down to his own, private tuning and body-switching bay, warm up gym and detailing area. Most of the long-time Paladins had similar areas, but he'd done a deal on Grewishka's old digs when the massive cyborg went rogue and was banned from the track. The area had needed hosing out, disinfecting and repainting, but it was quite big, and almost luxurious in comparison to some of the others. It also had a large back entrance/exit so he could come and go from the stadium unmolested. He felt that was the private area's biggest drawcard.

"If I try using the main exit tonight, I won't get home until tomorrow night!" Jashugan chuckled to himself, a wry smile playing around his lips. He was just rolling up to the tunnel mouth that led into his personal area when the world tilted sideways. Jashugan grabbed the door frame for support in an attempt to keep his wheels under him. His fingers dug into the concrete, chipping and grinding it to powder, while the door frame itself buckled slightly under his grip. He knew what this feeling was a prelude to - he was heading for another Flatline Attack.

Jashugan wobbled into his private dressing room like a raw kid new to skates. He worked his way toward the diagnostics and body-switching brace, knocking a wheeled trolley of equipment across the floor with a loud series of clatters and clangs as he went. He staggered into the frame, swinging clumsily around to orientate himself correctly with the mounting. Reacting to the pressure of his track body, the locks engaged and he was hoisted off the ground, while his head lolled to the right. His sight blurred and doubled, laced with static lines, and then slowly returned to more normal vision, but blurred around the edges, which faded in and out with his consciousness. He tried to call out, but his voice wouldn't respond to his efforts.

Normally his private area would have at least a few team members working in it, readying his street body for the swap after the race, maintaining his track body spares, or the team's other equipment. Jashugan flopped his head around, trying to look for someone, anyone to come to his aid. But he couldn't get his eyes focus on anything to tell if there was someone there or not.

"Damn peculiar," he muttered, and was relieved to hear his own voice echo back to him from the hard walls. He was just about to call out when he heard the sound of a gently closing door, and the tik-tak-tik-tak of what sounded like high heels on concrete. Jashugan must have faded out, because when he recognized he could see again, he was looking straight ahead at a beautiful woman, standing bold as brass, right in front of his body brace. She was tall and voluptuous, and full-flesh, but what was most apparent, and told Jashugan he had no recollection of ever seeing this woman before, was the large, red arrow, pointing down from her raven hairline to cross her forehead and end between the brows of her Asiatic eyes.

"Well," she purred, perching her left fist on her hip, her voice deep and sensual, like honey flowing over naked flesh, "I've seen you looking better. And that's not even a reflection on you being what amounts to a brain in a wheeled box." She lifted her right arm to point at him, and waggled her index finger. "You're not long for this world, if these Flatline Attacks get even a _tiny_ bit worse."

_Is she mocking me? _Was all Jashugan's shorting neurons would give him. He licked his lips and worked to find his voice.

"How did you get in here?" Jashugan wheezed, and the effort made his head spin. "This area is supposed to be secure…" The woman sneered.

"Is that all you've got?" she asked, and the look on her face said she didn't expect an answer. "For a man - and I use that term loosely - on death's door, you certainly don't stick to the topic at hand. Well, I was told to be _extra_ polite and _extra_ accommodating…" She stopped and rubbed her delicate chin, her full, sensuous lips pouting. "I have access to this bunker from back when it belonged to another _Pro Motorball Champion_," she spat the term out like it was sour grapes, "and it's lucky for you I do. Seems your support team are all off celebrating a bonus you paid them for 'a job well done' and aren't around to help you…" she stepped up and leaned in close to Jashugan's ear. Her perfume was heady, alluring and held the promise of pleasures he was no longer able to partake, "...or overhear our… negotiations."

The word 'negotiations' was like a bucket of cold water on Jashugan's brain cells. His pupils constricted back to a more normal diameter, and his eyes focused as this woman stepped back to a more comfortable distance. Jashugan understood he was at a significant disadvantage in the current situation, and he also knew it was never a good position to be negotiating at a disadvantage.

"I don't negotiate with unknown parties," Jashugan said, his voice taking on more of its usual power. "Who are you, and who do you represent?"

"Oh," the woman said, and seemed actually taken-aback. "How rude of me. I'm sorry. My name is Eelai, and I am here representing someone who has the power to help you last long enough, and play well enough, to become Final Champion." Eelai tossed her long, raven hair back from her face and stood a little less provocatively, while Jashugan was so surprised by the statement, he forgot to ask who this 'someone' was.

"How… how do you know a Final Champion challenge is going to be called?" Jashugan asked, intrigued, despite his condition.

"Oh, let's just say I have _insider information,_" Eelai said, examining her nails and looking smug.

"And what do you want in return for this 'boon?'" Jashugan asked after he recovered from his surprise. Eelai smiled, and Jashugan almost regretted that he'd given up his flesh for motorball… almost.

"Well it's all laid out here in the contract," Eelai said, producing a sheaf of papers from the back of her skirt somewhere. Jashugan shook his head.

"Sell me on the high points," he directed her, and Eelai obliged, a knowing smile pulling on the left side of her full lips.

"You get some experimental and highly-dangerous brain augmentation, which might kill you, but also has the possibility of extending and augmenting your brain function long enough to play to, and become Final Champion."

"Sounds… dicey," Jashugan said after a moment. "And what do 'you' get in return?"

"Oh, nothing much," Eelai responded, smiling coyly while expertly maneuvering herself to show off her 'assets,' barely constrained by her tight top and short skirt, with upper thigh and garter on display. The distraction almost worked, except Jashugan was too close to death and too far from the meatboy he once was to be fully aroused. "Just full telemetry from your games and other pivotal interactions after the augmentation operation, a - rather hefty - percentage of your winnings this season, and the obligatory telepresence chip installation in your new, improved cranium." She swanned over to her captive audience until her face was inches from his own. Her eyes were mesmerizing in their perfection, her breath smelled of mint and some other coying scent Jashugan couldn't place, and the closeness of her voluptuous form was even being picked up by the minimal sensors in his track body.

"You up for it, big boy?" Eelai asked, her tone hushed, nearly brushing her lips across his. Jashugan felt the world tilting, but slowly this time. His brain was delinking again, the first stage in the Flatline Attack that was stalking him like a deep jungle predator. He was out of options... and out of time.

"Ye… yes," Jashugan managed, and Eelai sprung back, picking up the contract from where she'd deposited it on a side table, and produced a pen, seemingly from nowhere. Thus armed, Eelai waltzed back to the immobile form of Jashugan, and supporting the final page of the document, oversaw Jashugan's limp effort to sign his mind away.

"And, there, that's done," Eelai said, all businesslike, as she stuffed the rolled contract back into the back of her skirt. Jashugan's head was lolling to the side again, and his pupils were dilating. He could feel his mind slipping away, into an abyss he would not be escaping from this time…

There was a sound of pressurized gas escaping, and Jashugan felt a shifting in his synthetic cranium he associated with open brain access. _Is she opening my head?_ His jumbled thoughts coalesced to inform him of that worrying prospect. There was a stab of cold and pain, and then it was gone.

An indeterminate time later, Jashugan realized he was blinking. He concentrated, and managed to take in his surroundings. He was still in his private chamber, but he was standing now, and Eelai was there too, and several burly men dressed all in black were dismantling his track body bracing equipment and carrying the pieces toward the street tunnel.

"What did you do?" Jashugan asked, surprised that his words were not at all slurred. Eelai turned to look up at him, a neutral, yet vaguely unimpressed look on her fine features. She was a tall woman, Jashugan realized, but nowhere near as tall as his cybered bulk.

"Ah yes, consider that a downpayment," Eelai said matter-of-factually. In fact, her voice seemed drained of sensuality. "Neural stabilizer injection. Should keep you going for a few more days without interface loss. But, that's not our goal here. I just needed you on your feet to walk out to our waiting van to go to m…" she paused, which made Jashugan look at her closely. He hadn't noticed before, but she had the brightest, bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

_Must be contacts, _Jashugan considered, _because this was the sort of person that would never cyber _anything_! _

"... the Professor's lab," Eelai continued. "Wouldn't do for someone to see you leaving, being carried out under guard. Think of the headlines." She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "No, this needs to be kept under wraps until you are ready. In two weeks to eighteen days, you will return to the track, triumphant!"

"OK," Jashugan replied, noncommittal, sensing something had changed here, but with his brain still recovering from the last Flatline Attack, he couldn't focus enough to work out exactly what.

_It will be a shame to miss two to three weeks of matches, however,_ Jashugan considered. He hated being off the track for any reason, but not being dead was a really good one, he decided. Alita would probably wipe the track with the other Paladins. He was already disappointed to miss it.

Eelai stiffly waved him after the retreating removalists, and as he went to follow them, he didn't see her slump against the wall of the tunnel behind him. Then, a few moments later, shake her head as her eyes returned to their more natural brown coloration. She picked herself up and staggered slightly as she followed after Jashugan, with a deeply unimpressed scowl gathered around the downfacing point of the arrow on her forehead.

Jashugan walked out onto the loading dock at the end of the tunnel. It was just past 1 a.m, according to his internal chronometer, the air had a bite to it, and the dock lamps did their best to hold back the deep dark of late night. His track body service brace was already packed into the back of a large, crimson-colored van, the skinny variety that was so common on Iron City streets. Jashugan stepped to the side, looking down the side of the cargo space. He saw a nondescript logo made of stylized fish and loaves, but strangely with no writing denoting the company name. Eelai stepped past him, blocking his view down the side of the van and gestured for him to enter. Jashugan stepped into the back of the van and found a large, track cyborg sized seat up near the front of the cargo space, facing forward. He took the seat and strapped on the seatbelt, as Eelai swanned past him, her hips working it, to spin around and land gracefully on a seat facing him. She sat there, staring at him, and he noted her eyes were brown…

_Did I imagine the vivid blue? Surely not?_ She reached up and rapped a knuckle on the metal wall behind her as the back doors of the van closed with a somewhat ominous thud.

As the van began to move away, splashing through the potholes filled with water from the downpour that afternoon, a slot on the wall dividing the cargo space from the cab slid open. Jashugan could just make out a shock of white hair, a forehead with an odd, purple gem embedded in it, and a pair of peculiar, metallic optics over the viewer's eyes. Those optics whined as they zoomed in on Jashugan, taking in every detail.

"Kyee Hee Hee!" the viewer laughed, almost manically. Jashugan swallowed involuntarily as the sound of it died away, echoing around the back of the van. When he spoke, his voice was like a deranged serial killer reading bedtime stories. "Tell me, Paladin Jashugan. Do you like flan?"

…

Alita sighed, exhaling deeply to try to clear the buzz in her head from the night's excitement, but it just didn't want to budge. She sat on the chipped and grimy concrete stairs, back up against a statue base in the semi-darkness. It was after 1 am, there was a chill seeping into her chassis and armor despite the pants and 'Esdoc Motors' jacket she was wearing, and the one street lamp, far off round the curve of the arena, did little to illuminate her position. Above her towered a seven-foot-tall statue of a human heart, veins and arteries ending abruptly, looking foreboding in the half-light on the landing of a set of emergency exit stairs. It was something that would have been rarely seen in its position in the back alley that provided service access to the rear of the stadium. This emergency exit must have been more important at some time in the past, but now it was a forgotten relic of another time. Much like Alita had been, until Ido had found her.

Thinking of Ido reminded her of their conversation earlier that evening, after she'd escaped the chaotic pressure of the post-race press crowd. It had been crazy, and she'd quickly grown tired of answering their banal and often ludicrous questions. But it had been the one about Hugo that had ended the conference abruptly.

...

Alita had been confused enough by the obsessive crowd of reporters and fans that had mobbed her and Jashugan as they left the podium. He seemed to revel in it, handling the mob with deft hand gestures and cutting retorts, but it was something Alita had not experienced before, and so was woefully unprepared. Bright camera lights, all pointed at her, and the flashes from still cameras making her eyes reflexively blink and her irises contract. The questions shouted one over another. It reminded her of something. Some other time, bright flashes, impacts, dirt flying, concussive shocks. Something like… _fighting through a bombardment!_ Alita gritted her teeth.

"Now, Alita, don't let them get to you," Ed's voice came over her internal comlink; tiny support in the face of these demands for answers. "They're just sheep in wolves clothing. Give them something to chew on, and they'll leave you alone. Just answer their questions succinctly, and be careful not to give away any private information."

"Mmm, hmmm," Alita subvocalized in return, as the next question was flung her way.

"Alita, we saw a new move from you, tonight," a fresh-faced and brash young man stated, "Does it have a name?"

"Yes," Alita responded, a little happier to be getting questions she could warm to. "It's called _Schatten Forgen, _or Shadow Tracking, and it's used to size up an opponent. I used it in a slightly different way, to gain an opening on that opponent."

"Alita," called a tall, dark-skinned woman with a rich, deep voice, one row back, "what do you think are the chances of a Final Champion bout being called before the end of the season?"

Alita graced the crowd of reporters with a predatory grin. "Oh, highly likely. The question is when…" _...will Nova throw in that little wildcard, _Alita finished to herself. She was excited about the prospect of fighting for the right to go to Zalem, and so was blindsided when that one reporter, with the fedora, long blue hair, and high cheekbones, sporting a camera lens replacing his left eye had picked his moment to throw _the_ question.

"So Alita," he smooshed, all self-confidence and a leering smile, "word on the street has it your last boyfriend took a rather long tumble. Anyone new on the horizon, or are you 'available'?"

The buzz of questions and conversations around Alita suddenly ceased, replaced by a collective intake of breath. Anyone who knew Alita at all knew that this was a taboo subject. She was playing motorball to try to forget her loss, as far as they all knew. Alita had stood there as the now-silent crowd awaited her response, a deer in the headlights, like a soldier pinned to a wall by a footman's pike. At least that's how her heart felt, thanks to the unwelcome reminder.

But then Alita's mouth compressed into a thin line, and her brows knitted into one of her almighty frowns, from under which she glared holes in Mr Camera-Lens-Eye. "You see this stump of an arm?" she growled, intensity dripping off every syllable as she lifted her left arm, the truncated end at eye height. The blue-haired reporter began visibly shrinking.

"Alita, dooonn'ttt!" came Ed's plaintive cry in her head comlink. But there was no stopping her at that point. Her fire was stoked, and so, someone had to burn.

"This is combat damage, incurred on _THAT_ track," Alita violently pointed in the direction of the track with her good arm. "For _YOUR_ entertainment!" She was seething now, breathing so deeply her whole upper body rose and fell. She stalked, not skated, towards the offending reporter. "_MOTORBALL_ is what _I_ play here, to entertain _YOU! _You can ask me anything you like about the game, the players, my martial arts, or what I think of Zalem, but if you _DARE_ ask me about my private life again…" Alita was standing three feet from the dumbstruck reporter by this time, the individuals around him having miraculously melted away.

"Alita, please," Ed said in a small voice. It fell on a deaf mind.

Alita's arm flashed up, her left wrist at her left ear, and the point of the Damascus Blade an eighth of an inch from the man's whirring optic as it tried and failed to focus on something so close. "I will cut that lens eye out of your head faster than you can blink the other malformed orb in that blue-framed cranium of yours."

A collective 'woh' escaped the slack-jawed mouths of the other reporters. There was some subdued cheering from fans in the back, who wanted to see more carnage! Even though Alita's shorter stature required her left elbow to angle up so the point of the blade was at the man's cyber-eye, everyone there saw Alita as a towering figure.

Ed's quiet sobs echoed over Alita's comlink.

"I.. yes… um… oh," the chastised reporter managed before soiling himself. He glanced down, his face turning bright red, and then turned and ran. Those behind him parted to let him flee.

Alita humphed as she watched him go, and subconsciously blew the dangling lock of hair out of her right eye. "And that goes for the rest of you, too," she added in a voice close to a whisper. The reporters were silent. The fans were silent. Yet there was much nodding.

"I... have some combat damage I need to have repaired," Alita said absently, after shaking herself a little. She turned and began skating away. "Thank you for your interest in the result of this match," Alita called over her shoulder, a satisfied smirk the exclamation point to her otherwise scowling features, "and I'll see you all at the next Pro round in four days' time."

Realizing she was leaving, the crowd had pushed forward again, many voices clamoring to get a final question in. Alita ignored them all, slipping easily through the line of security thanks to her delicate proportions - receiving a wink from Mel as she did so - and retreated into the 'player only' area. It wasn't long before she was in the Esdoc Motors' Trailer, being seen too by Umba. She tried to forget the barb the question had left in her chest, but it was properly lodged, just like the buzz in her head. They combined to ruin her mood.

"So that was a great first Pro League race, Alita," Umba began, as he decoupled Alita's arms and legs, leaving her core dangling in the servicing brace. He moved around rapidly on his tracked base, scanning first the end of the left arm, with wires and servo connectors dangling, and then the right arm. When Alita stayed quiet, dangling in the harness, Umba stopped and looked up at her face. It was mostly hidden by her hair, which had flopped over as she was looking down. Umba thought Alita might be crying and was hiding it from view. But he corrected that assessment when a primal growl, starting low and gain strength and volume, erupted from his Paladin charge.

"ggggggrrrrrrrrRRRRRHHHHHHAAAAAA!" Alita breathed heavily for a few seconds. Her exertion set her to swinging slightly in the hanging brace.

"A-are you OK, Alita?" Umba asked, rolling back a little on his tracked unit, despite himself.

"I was supposed to beat him!" she stated, ignoring the question.

"Who? Jashugan?" Alita looked up and glared at Umba.

"Yes, of course, Jashugan," she said, in a more normal tone, but the hardness in her eyes hadn't diminished. "Did you see anyone else out there giving me any trouble, after I got my head out of the Second League and started taking the race seriously?" Umba had a momentary urge to mention Ajakutty and Bargerald, but wisely chose to remain silent. "Jashugan is the best the Pro League has thrown at me so far, but I should be able to beat him. I know I can. He's not that special, unless he's holding something back…"

"Well, I don't know," Umba said, checking the joints in Alita's detached arm. "He's been independently rated by three sources as the Paladin most likely to win Final Champion, until you came along, that is. They are all probably recalculating like mad, right now!"

"Yes, yes, I know that," Alita replied, her breathing slowing slightly and her eyes wandering in thought. "But I should have been able to win that race…"

"Well there was the problem with the limb syncing, and your left hand," Umba said, holding up the damaged limb as if Alita needed to see it yet again. She gave him a look and he quickly unclipped the cables connecting it to her body, and placed it on a gurney.

"Well I'll sync every spare we have, well before the next round," Alita stated, "and I'll be extra aware of unnecessary damage." Her gaze was hard as it settled on the Damascus Blade, where she'd hung it on the webbing near the back door of the trailer. "Those setbacks will not happen again."

"Good to know," Umba said absently, "but they have caused ongoing problems. It's going to take me days to get this arm track-worthy again, and while I'm really glad it performed so well, even damaged, we don't have any other spare right arms. I'll have to speak to Ido about fab'ing another one, but then that's going to really stretch the budget, even with the half-winnings you got from tonight."

"So, what?" Alita asked, as Umba took a fresh, undamaged left arm from the trolley and began the process of attaching it. "We're broke?"

"Uh, that's Ed's side of the business," Umba said, finalizing the connections as he dodged the question. "I'll let him explain it."

"Uh!" Alita felt a tingle and the limb synced, then gave Umba a quizzical look.

"Oh this is an arm you damaged slightly in training and I've since rebuilt - it already holds sync information," he said by way of explanation, "but the new right arm is going to need sync time, so we'd best hook it up next." Umba rolled round to Alita's right side to begin.

"Can't you just copy over the sync data from the damaged arm like we did with the leg?" Alita asked, her impatience obvious.

"Sorry, Alita, this right arm has joint and musculature damage all the way from shoulder to fingers," Umba explained, "it will have modified its parameters to keep functioning as best it could with the damage. If I risk copying over that erroneous data, it could cause similar damage to the new arm when you use it under load." Alita nodded. "So this one will have to be done properly. Should take about 20 minutes, and it will take me at least that long to check and tune the rest of your body after the beating you gave it out there."

Alita grimaced. "I was just doing my job! And it's a rough sport. You have to expect wear and tear!"

"Wear and tear," Umba mimicked her in a squeaky voice, and was glad she didn't have a right arm attached when she rolled those big brown eyes in his direction. Then she brightened.

"Ah yes," Alita said, some sweetness finally flavoring her voice, "but that's why I have you, the best Tuner in the game!"

"At the moment," Umba responded, his tone business-like and eyes on his work. "Ido is still the best, when he puts his mind to it and will enter the pits, since Chiren is…"

"Yes," Alita said, looking down so her hair fell across her face again. "Don't remind me about that, either."

…

Umba worked quietly and left Alita to her thoughts until Ed, Ido and Gerhad came into the trailer a quarter-hour later. Ed looked morose, while Ido and Gerhad were smiling and laughing. Alita looked quizzically at the trio. _Are Ido and Gerhad joking together? Have they been out… celebrating?_

"Ah, there she is!" Ido said, louder and with a more exaggerated tone than his normal voice. The smile on his aging face was warm and genuine, and Alita couldn't help but give him a small smile in return. "Our very own Pro Motorball Champion!" Ido strode over to Alita, who was still in the brace but was only lacking the right arm connection, and leaned down to give her a big hug. Alita leaned into it, and the warm sensation of the hug from the man who had come to represent a father to her made her pain diminish for a time. "Congratulations, Alita. I'm so proud."

"But I didn't win the race," Alita began to protest in a quiet voice as Ido pulled out of the hug and went on to congratulate Umba for his fantastic work. Gerhad leaned in next, to distribute her own congratulatory hug.

"Congratulations, Alita," Gerhad said into Alita's ear. "Really well done. We knew you could do it."

"But I didn't win," Alita said again, but then switched tracks when a particular smell from Gerhad's breath reached her nostrils. "Have you two been drinking?"

"A little," Gerhad said, and giggled slightly. "Ido had a bottle of champagne with him to celebrate if… no, _when_ you won, and you did the next best thing, so we opened it. We were… planning to share it with all of you, but we finished it waiting for the press gathering to end!"

Alita was looking at her adopted father and his work associate with her head tilted to the side, as if that would help her understand what she was witnessing. Gerhad was usually a woman of few words, but it seemed that booze got her talking.

"Oh, and we got you a present!" Gerhad exclaimed, reaching into her shoulder bag and fishing out a box with a bowstring on the top. She handed it to Alita, who put it in her lap, and dying to find out what it might be, pulled on the string. The string removed, the top of the box popped open, but before Alita could peer inside, a strange creature rose out of the box.

It was a sphere-shaped beast, about two inches across, fuzzy, purple in color, and an inch long tail that ended in what looked for all the world to be a cotton ball. One large eye blinked slowly at Alita as it rose out of the box on some sort of fuzzy-eared rotor system that enabled it to fly, at least for short distances. It rose up, swung around, and landed on Alita's shoulder facing forwards, touching down on two, geko-like feet that appeared out of the fuzz. Once it's rotor ears stopped spinning, Alita could see they were also fuzzy. It leaned into Alita's cheek and rubbed against her metallic eyeblack where it ran down the side of her head.

"It's so cute!" Alita exclaimed, some of her youthful exuberance reappearing for the first time in months. "I love it! Does it have a name?"

"The seller said it answers to Kimji, but it would learn another name if you used it for several months," Gerhad explained.

"Oh no, Kimji is fine. Thank you so much!" Alita gushed, leaning up to give Gerhad another one-armed hug, who was more than happy to oblige. Kimji took off again, only going a short distance to land on Alita's head. She giggled as she leaned back in the brace, looking through her hairline at Kimji as it stared down at her.

"There's a feeding, care and training pamphlet for it, too," Gerhad said, fishing that out of her shoulder bag and leaving it on the tool tray to the side of the trailer. "It says to be careful not to let the little creature fly too high, or around Centurions or Factory Officials, for obvious reasons."

Alita, nodded, and Kimji fell off her head, landing in her left hand. She lifted it up to eye height and smiled at the little creature. It blinked at her and rubbed against her armored thumb. The creature walked to the edge of her hand and scrambled back onto her shoulder, and Alita let her hand fall to her lap and looked up at Gerhad, her look turning serious.

"But I don't deserve celebrations or presents," Alita said, "because I DIDN'T WIN!" She was sure everyone heard her that time.

"Oh, you didn't have to win," Ido cut in, after patting Umba on the shoulder rather roughly, and turning back to the other conversation in the confines of the trailer. "You played at the highest level, overcame difficulties, fought the top-rated Paladin to a standstill, and wrecked all the others. As far as I know, no one else has ever done so well in their first game in Pro League in the history of the game!"

"Well, it _could_ have been better," Ed cut in, and the merriment in the trailer came to a sudden halt. They all turned to look at him, and Ed became a little self-conscious. Still, he had something to say, and needed to say it. "Alita does need to win," Ed continued after a moment, rubbing his chin with his hand and sighing. "Look, we got 250K chips from Tommo, who is currently our only sponsor, and it's been spent on parts, upgrade gear, and extra limbs, many of which you see in pieces around the trailer." Ido and Gerhad looked around in a somewhat exaggerated manner, oohing and aahing at the broken silver and purple limbs spread about the crowded space.

"Well it's a violent sport…" Alita protested half-heartedly.

"Regardless," Ed went on, his face dower, "if you keep going through the parts like this, you'll be off the track in one race, two at best, even with the moderate sum you brought in tonight."

After a moment's pause, everybody tried to talk at once. Ed held his hands up for silence, and was eventually granted it.

"Now I am working on more sponsorships," Ed continued, dropping his hands, "and with the fight with Jashugan being so close, we should be able to get someone, but the problem is all the big sponsors are already backing other Paladins. It'll take some time to bring them across - contracts expiring and the like." Ed looked at each of them, care and grim concern etched into his features. "I just don't know if we're going to stay solvent long enough for it to happen."

"Well I could take on some more bounties…" Ido began, waving his arms in a haphazard manner that belied his alcohol-affected state.

"No!" Alita stated emphatically, gripping his arm hard enough to make him wince. "You need that money for the clinic. You've put far too much of your own time and resources into my track career already. I'm sure the patients you aren't seeing because you've been helping me have been suffering because of it." Despite her best efforts, Alita's large, brown eyes were tearing up a bit. "And anyway, you're not getting any younger, Dad!" Ido winced, either from the vernacular or the statement of fact, Alita couldn't be sure. "You can't be risking your life even more than you already are."

Ido went to protest, but Gerhad put her cyberhand on his shoulder. He looked back into her eyes, and she shook her head. Ido's lip curled slightly, and then he slowly nodded.

"So it's settled," Alita concluded, "Ed will look for more sponsorship, and I'll take on some bounties." If Alita had two arms connected, she probably would have been rubbing her hands together at the prospect.

"Um, Alita," Umba said, his tone neutral as he worked on connecting the right arm to her torso which had finished syncing, "you do remember that part of the Paladin contract you signed to race in the Pro League had a clause forbidding you to work as a Hunter-Warrior while playing Pro League Motorball?" Alita's head snapped around to stare, open-mouthed at Umba.

"Yep, it does," Ed agreed, "to stop any hot-headed Paladins getting themselves greased in a back alley and 'screwing up the odds' by being absent on race night. There are severe penalties for breaking that clause, all of which we can't afford right now."

"Hrm," Alita said, then she winced as the arm was attached. Umba went to say 'sorry,' but she waved him away. "Well, I do have one other option. I really don't like it, but to reach your goals, you have to…" she paused for a moment, "push through."

"Alita," Ido said, in the 'dad voice' that all daughters either hate or roll their eyes at. "You're not planning on doing anything unsavory for quick chips, are you?"

"Ido!" Alita retorted, her tone admonishing. "I would never… No." She turned to Ed. "I need to make sure I can get them, but if I'm right, would 400K chips be enough to go on with?"

"Uh, yeah," Ed said, scratching his head, as Umba disconnected Alita from the monitoring cables and released the clamps on the servicing brace. Alita stood, with Ido and Gerhad's gazes following her wide-eyed as they stepped back to give her more room to work her right shoulder. Alita checked her internal diagnostic indicators, which were all in the green.

"OK then. I've cost you all so much to get me this far, now I'll make the effort to keep us going," Alita said, taking her Damascus Blade from the webbing at the back of the van and sliding it into a fancy, spider silk sheath. "It's the least I can do." She added it to a duffle bag along with her waking feet - that matched her track body - and boots. Then she looked up at the small, one-eyed creature on her shoulder, and it snuggled her cheek. Alita 'tiched' and shook her head, picking Kimji from her shoulder and handing the little creature to Ido, who took it carefully, not knowing quite what to do with it.

"How do I…" Ido began, and Alita put the care instruction booklet Gerhad had left on the side bench into his other hand.

"Keep it safe. I'll look after it when I get home," Alita said.

"Alita, you might want to cover up. Even late at night, now you are a Pro Motorball Paladin, people will recognize you, and might hassle you," Umba said, and Ido nodded. Alita checked her duffle, and found a pair of zippier ankled pants she'd stowed there earlier. Nodding, she took her 'Esdoc Motors' monogrammed jacket of a hook on the back of the door, and slung it over her duffle. Then putting on a strong, determined look, Alita threw the duffle over her shoulder, and went to the back of the trailer, turning the door handle.

"Are you going to be alright?" Gerhad asked, a woman's intuition telling her that Alita was leaving to undertake a trial of some sort.

"Oh, I'll live through it," Alita replied over her shoulder, somewhat cryptically, "but my immunity to this sort of pain is still a work in progress."

With that, she rolled out the back door of the trailer and into the night.

"And may you never truly be immune to the pain of caring," Ido murmured as the door swung back closed with the sound of metal on metal, and a solid click of the latch engaging.

...

Alita was jerked from her reverie by the sound of a large van splashing through the puddles along the back alley of the Motorball Arena. The sound was coming closer.

"Enough delaying," Alita murmured to herself, and sighed as she pulled herself to her feet. She quickly flipped up the hood of her jacket and hefted the duffle to a comfortable position on her shoulder.

Ready to skate, she looked around the bulbous form of the giant heart statue, and saw that the van was closing fast, bouncing through the puddles and potholes of the poorly maintained access lane. As it passed the light that she couldn't quite see around the curve of the stadium, she saw a series of stylized fish and loaves decorating the side of the otherwise red cargo space.

_That's odd, _Alita thought to herself. _It's too big to be a catering truck, and a bulk food delivery service would have some text advertising themselves on their vans, surely?_ But it _was_ going in the right direction, and she'd put off this distasteful chore long enough.

As the van sped past her hiding spot, Alita zipped down the last few stairs, zoomed up to the back of the van, grabbed hold of the large, footplate bumper and squatted, allowing the van to pull her along. She lent low into the corner as the van turned away from the stadium, keeping easy balance and also remaining hidden from the large mirrors on each side of the cab. The van was heading west towards the northern reaches of Barrio Viejo, and she would stick with it until it changed direction, or they reached her less-than-comfortable destination.

To move forward, she had to go back. Back to her short, heartbreaking and hunted past.


	8. Chapter 7 - Forlorn Hope

In the deep dark of the early AM, Alita Ido, the Battle Angel of the Iron City Motorball Circuit, up-and-coming Paladin and Pro Motorball Champion, slayer of enormous homicidal cyborg Grewiska and his factory boss Vector, ex-Hunter-Warrior and considered all-around badass, stood wide-eyed in an alleyway across the quiet street from an unremarkable apartment building in northern Barrio Viejo. Clutching the corner of the wall and staring around it like a worried child reminded her far too much of her first foray into the night streets of Iron City - following Ido when he'd gone out to hunt bounties, while Alita herself had thought _he_ was the killer! But there was no one she was following tonight. There was no one to confront with misplaced concerns about the harming of innocents. No, this night it was the past that Alita had concerns about, and in her own inimitable style, she _had_ to confront them head o…

Alita nearly jumped out of her motorball body when her internal phone rang. She staggered back from the corner into the darker confines of the alleyway, the sound of her wheelfeet clacking on the cobblestones echoing between the buildings. After glancing around to make sure no one was coming to investigate the sounds - a really bad idea in the middle of the night in an alley of Iron City - she picked up the call.

"Alpha-665713-Gamma-33425-Bravo-Bravo-15-Deta-Signify," a gruff, poor-quality, computerized voice stated. Alita knew what this meant, and mentally entered the code into a cipher chip that Ido had added to her internal coms processor.

"Signify," she subvocalized when the adjustment kicked in. Alita listened closely; there would be no pleasantries framing this call, and the background of digital static that was a spillover from the decoding process meant she had to concentrate on every word. There would be no repeating missed information from _this _caller.

"Plan Z preparations 45% complete. Due to time frame required, cost overruns inevitable. 250K chips required to complete this unit's part of materials, construction and procurement. Payment required within 72 hrs. Signify."

Alita sighed. Well, that decided it. She _had to_ face the demons of her past and get the money for both her primary and backup plans. In war, you never went into a campaign with only one path to victory. The question that still plagued her was, which plan was the primary, and which was the secondary with what she suspected? Alita decided it didn't matter. They both had a part to play.

"Acknowledged," Alita subvocalized. "Payment in 72 hours at Lambda 6 dropoff. Signify."

"Signify. Unit D.I. additions to construction required in 9 days. Location N45. Items will be ready on schedule? Signify." The mechanical voice's first tonal shift was to create a question.

"They will be ready. He will come through for us. Dropoff to Location N45. Signify." Alita subvocalized, but she was working on faith in her father on that one.

"Signify," came the response, and the carrier wave went dead.

Alita shook her head to try to clear it, then glanced around. The alleyway was as dark and as deserted as it had been when she'd got there. She really hoped the triple encryption was enough. When Zalem listened to that call, and they would, they'd hear grocery lists and pleasantries on the standard, digital band. But that was just a carrier for the encrypted message. Yet even if they picked up the subtext and got to the real message, they didn't have any context for the details of the conversation, so she felt that Plan Z was still secure. If it wasn't, the sound of all the Centurions in Iron City closing on her position would be a dead giveaway!

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Alita sat down on an old wooden crate up against the wall of the alley and dropped the duffle next to her. Opening it, she pulled out a pair of standard feet that matched the style and color scheme of her track body, and put them down next to her legs. Unzipping her pants at the ankles, Alita shimmied them up to expose the fronts of her calves, then reached down and flipped up the latching t-bars with both her thumbs simultaneously to release her wheelfeet. She picked them up and deposited them in the duffle, having no trouble seeing what she was doing in the weak, ambient light seeping into the alley thanks to her URM biosynthetic eyes.

Alita placed her bare ankles over the seating pins on the standard feet, then flicked up the locking panels and thumped the latching t-bars into place. Finally, she took a pair of dark, leather boots with large collars and slipped them over her standard feet, wiggling her toes to test the sync as she did so.

She was just pulling down and rezipping her pants legs when a flash of light lit the sky. She glanced up in time to see it reflect off the tiny sliver of Zalem's disc that was visible in the alley. A few moments later, as was zipping up the duffle, she heard the far-off, coruscating, rumble of thunder, and after a quick mental calculation, she knew a thunderstorm would be hitting Iron City in less than an hour.

As ready as she'd ever be, Alita shouldered the duffle and stood up to approach the corner again, resolve sitting almost as heavily in her chest as the heartache that had been increasing in intensity ever since she'd decided to visit that haunted apartment. At the corner, she looked over at the building, and then up at the windowsill she'd squatted on so many times. The window was closed - not surprising due to the dwelling's vacancy. She remembered that he had liked to leave it open to get the cross-breeze through the small, corner apartment. The thought caused the pain in her chest to intensify, and she closed her eyes for a moment, biting her lip to get control of her emotions. She had to do this. There was literally no other way.

Alita checked that the street was clear, then strode purposefully across until she was on the opposite sidewalk, under _that_ window. She adjusted the positioning of the duffle in preparation to jump, and then had to wait while a chorus of flashes lit the sky. To fill the time, Alita squatted and flexed her legs in the pants, gauging the acceleration and lift she could generate without tearing the fabric. While the track body that Ido and Umba had built for her was strong, it wasn't nearly as vertically mobile as the Berserker body. She missed its fluid grace and coiled strength, but that body was just tied up in her head with so much emotional baggage. Maybe one day she'd be able to wear it again, but not now. It would remain, locked in Ido's basement storage facility, until that time.

When the sky off to the west produced no more flashes, she waited until the rumbling from the delayed thunder was at its loudest and then sprang into the air. Even at a run, Alita would have had trouble reaching the windowsill in one leap, but she had, many months ago, worked out a three-step method to reach the fifth-floor ledge without straining herself. The first spring took her up two stories, where she deflected off a masonry support that hung out of the building corner using her feet. This changed her trajectory to about thirty degrees, and she flew past several windows like a silent bat, before catching a drainage pipe and swinging around it, reversing her trajectory and sending her back towards _that_ window while doing a backward somersault with a twist. Altia had to make a mid-air adjustment to her flight due to the difference in power to weight ratio of the track body, and the weight of the duffle she still held on her shoulder.

Alita would normally have caught the edges of the second, open window from the right - the first one had an extraction fan mounted in it - at the top of her arc, reducing noise and damage to the window surrounds, and pull her legs up and in to squat on the sill. But this time her usual window was closed, so she had to catch the sill with the fingers of her free hand, as the other was occupied with her burden. The noise of her arrival was covered by the last of the rolling thunder, and she steadied herself, legs spread thirty degrees and toes caught on the edges of the bricks that were showing through the crumbling stucco. Secure, she gripped the handles of the duffle with her teeth, and with her now free left hand, reached into the back pocket of her pants, withdrawing a slim, six-inch-long, metal ruler. Alita poked it in between the locked windows and slid it up. She knew the window was only held closed by a simple latch, and she smirked in satisfaction when she heard the latch disengage, and the freed windows swung outwards. Alita flicked her right-hand grip down to a protruding brick to clear the windows' path, and then, just as quickly changed it again to a full handhold on the windowsill. Secure again, she pocketed the ruler and lifted the duffle through the opening, and then hauled herself as silently as possible through the now open window. Not wanting to alert anyone to her presence, she quickly turned around and pulled the windows in again, relatching them.

Alita took a deep breath and turned to surveil the room. That was when her heart caught in her throat.

_It still smelled like him._

Despite the - mostly - dark of night, it still looked the way it had the last time she'd been there. The flashes of lightning outside the wrap-around windows showed a fine layer of dust over his workbench and belongings, but it was still the way she remembered it. The way it was burnt into her brain. Except there was a Hogo-sized hole in the present of this place that matched the same one in her heart.

Alita heard a young woman sob, and realized a few moments later that it was herself. She felt the tracks of tears flowing down her cheeks from her suddenly tired and aching eyes, and the pain boiling in her chest, threatening to erupt into… what? She had no idea.

Despite two months of grieving. Two months of working her butt off at the Motorball track. Two months of trying to move on with her mission, her heart was stuck here. Always here. Where Hogo had been. When Hugo had been… part of her life.

The view of the room shifted, and she realized through her blurry eyes that she had fallen to her knees. "I shouldn't have come here," she blubbered to no one. "I'm not ready for this…" She fell forward, her face in her cold, metallic hands and wept.

Wept like she had never done before. Like she never knew she could. It was like a river of pain, the tears squeezed from her eyes, flowing through her fingers. Not the fingers that had failed to save Hugo - those fingers were on the body she couldn't stand to wear anymore. But still, these were her fingers. And they couldn't have saved him, either. She couldn't save him. She'd failed…

The crying lasted for a long time.

...

When Alita thought she might just cry herself to death, the tears suddenly dried up, as if she had no more to spare. She sat up on her haunches, gulping deep breaths, and listened to the rumbles of thunder outside. The storm front was getting closer. She found some tissues and cleaned herself up, not allowing herself to think about the context she was walking around in, lest the loss swallow her again.

Hugo had told her he'd paid for the apartment two years in advance, because that was the length of time he'd calculated it would take him to get the chips together for Zalem, and advanced payment gave a good discount. It still had six months to go. That was why it was undisturbed, and why she expected - hoped - that the chips Hugo had amassed to buy his way to Zalem were still here.

When he'd only had a few hundred K chips, Hugo has kept them - rather foolishly - in a tin at the back of the wardrobe near the door. When he'd got close to the million chips, he'd wised up, and devised a better, safer storage system for such a large sum.

Alita pushed the bed up against the low cupboard on the west wall, pulled back the rug with a three-foot-wide wet patch from tears on it, and got down on her hands and knees. She tapped the floor with her right index finger in different spots until the sound changed. It went from a solid 'clunk' to a hollow 'clock.' She crawled over to that spot, sniffling a bit from all the tears, and then blew carefully across the floor. The powder that Hugo had sprinkled on the joins and the lifting latch to hide them blew away, exposing the edges of a sub-floor storage area two-feet square. Alita rose back up onto her haunches, blowing the rogue lock of hair out of her - very red - right eye, and wiggled her right index finger under the lifting latch.

"Well," she said quietly to herself, "if it's not here, I may well fail again." She lifted the latch.

Lightning flashed outside, illuminating a space filled to overflowing with stacks of chips of all commonly-issued values. It looked to be all there. The middle stacks were obscured, however, and Alita reached down to lift out the small sheet of paper that was blocking it. As she lifted it up to eye height, the ambient light from outside enabled her to see that it was a photograph, of Hugo and herself, after a rather successful training session on the leadup to her tryout. Alita remembered it was taken by Koyomi, on her phone camera, and Hugo must have had it printed out - an unusual thing in Iron City. Then she saw the marker pen circling her image, and the words Final Champion written with an arrow point to the circle. Alita smiled, and her eyes teared up again. She'd loved him so much, and he'd believed in her - absolutely.

She couldn't let him down. She couldn't let her feelings of loss stop the plan they had worked on. She was going to Zalem, one way or another, and this money that Hugo had saved to go up, and hand never used, would actually fulfill the purpose for which it was collected.

She spent several minutes filling the duffle to overflowing with chips - and the photo - then closed the lid and sprinkled the dust back. She stood up and absent-mindedly patted her hands together to remove excess dust, looking around the room as she did so. Her eyes came to rest on a tin on the shelves behind the door. She went over to it, opened it, and took out the spare key to the apartment. She put it in her pocket, just in case. Finally, she returned the rug to its original position, sure it would dry in the morning, pulled the bed back into place, and picked up the duffle off the bed…

… and that was when she saw it. The envelope on the ruffled blanket. She feared it would be addressed to her, but it wasn't. It just said 'Hugo' on the front, in flowery handwriting that Alita suspected was a woman's. Someone in Hugo's old crew must have got into the apartment and left the envelope.

Alita's first instinct was to leave it alone, but with Hugo 'gone,' no one would open it. What if it was important? Alita swallowed hard and picked up the envelope, turning it and flipping up the fold. Not seeing any paper, Alita turned the envelope upside down over her palm, and a tiny storage chip, smaller than her fingernail, fell into her purple and silver, metallic palm. She looked at it for a few moments, while mentally setting up firewalls for possible malicious code, and then plugged it into the port in her arm. Its contents made Alita's heart ache all the more.

There was a single file on the chip. It was audio-only. Alita activated playback. She heard a voice she instantly recognized. Someone she considered a friend, if not a close one. Someone she'd definitely not considered in all the mess of two months before.

"Hugo," Koyomi's voice came into Alita's head. It was chocked full of emotion. Fear, concern, confusion, and an undercurrent of anger. "You know who this is, so I'm not going to use my name." Pause. "I… I hope you're alright. Please be alright."

There was another pause, and Alita could hear sobbing in the background. It might have been Diff, another of the old crew. She couldn't be sure.

"Diff went back to where you confronted Tanji about quitting the 'night work' a few hours later and saw the Factory Prefects bagging up the two halves of his body. I know you don't carry anything that could have done that to Tanj, so it had to be that prick Zapan. Diff also said Zapan was after you! Oh gods, I hope you _are _alright. That you're not…"

There was a 'click' and the background sounds changed. The muffled conversations and kitchen sounds pegged the location as the Cafe Café, probably late at night. Corner booth, if the acoustics could be trusted. Koyomi took a deep breath before speaking. It was obvious to Alita she was very emotional.

"So, I bumped into Gerhad last night, and she told me Zapan got to you, but Alita saved your head and they put it… you… onto a TR body. I can't imagine how much that must have distressed you because I know about your history - you told me about it after you were beat up by that Southtown gang who stole your mother's bracelet.

Anyway, when you've recovered we should have a memorial for Tanj. I miss him so much. I've been crying since I got word… Please, stay safe. I can't lose you too."

There was another click and the acoustics of the recording changed again. Koyomi was in a back alley now, by the echos off hard surfaces.

"I saw the bounty marker on you tonight. Diff told me it's been there for 2 nights. I must have been too worried to look. Oh gods, I hope they don't catch you. Why now, when you've quit, does this happen? It's not fair!" Alita caught the sound of Koyomi sobbing before the recording cut again.

The audio on the last section Alita immediately recognized as from the one-room apartment in which she stood. As she listened, she nodded, her fists clenched. She felt the tide of anger rising, and was powerless to stop it.

"I heard there was some attack on the Factory. I don't know if that had anything to do with you, but things are really weird around here at the moment. I'm going to get out of Iron City for a while. I'm feeling really paranoid - I feel like the Factory will put a bounty on _me_ next. I have relatives at one of the farms. I won't say which one, in case some keen Hunter-Warrior finds this recording. I'm going there for a few months, to let this blow over. I'll check that there are no markers on me before I come back. Gods, I hope you are alright. But you should be, you have one of the strongest cyborgs in Iron City as your girlfriend, if what I'm told happened at the motorball tryouts is to be believed."

Alita mirthlessly guffed at that, and a single tear ran down her cheek.

"I hope Alita can protect you. I don't want to lose you too. I don't know what I'd do if you… you know. I can't say it.

Good luck, and keep dreaming. I'll always be your friend."

There as a pause for a few moments, as if Koyomi was trying to find something else to say to properly end the recording. But it didn't come, and the audio ended with an unceremonious click.

…

The door at the bottom of the stairwell flew open and smashed against the wall, almost coming off its hinges from the force of Alita's uncontrolled kick. She stepped through, bulging duffle over one shoulder, her other hand balled in a fist. Her face was awash with tears again, but this time her teeth were gritted, and her eyes darted around, as if daring someone to attack her from out of the night, like that bastard Zapan.

Alita had thought she'd come to terms with what he'd done. After all, he hadn't actually killed Hugo. That was Nova's doing. But he'd been the shifting stone that started the avalanche, and… She stopped stalking across the storage area towards the exit doors to glare at an alcove between a support pillar and a drain pipe. She saw a chain running around the pipe, and it reminded her that this was where Hugo used to chain his gyro up when he was at home.

She walked over, a little of the anger being replaced by curiosity, and pulling back cardboard boxes and wooden crates, uncovered Hugo's gyro, dutifully chained to the pipe where it belonged. The red highlights of the single, black wheel, the breaking mechanism down low at the front, the footrests she had used a passenger so many times halfway up the back of the wheel, and the main body of the gyro crouching over the wheel, motivator under the fuel tank, with its black and brass fairings, pop out handlebars and double seat at the back. Alita stood there, looking at it for several seconds, blinking, in case it would vanish and be some sort of mirage created by her distraught mind. But it insisted on existing, so she walked over to it, pulling the apartment key out as she did so. The upstairs key fit the lock on the heavy chain that wound around the pipe and though the single wheel of the gyro several times. Alita unlocked it, and locked the chain back up so no one got the idea it was available. She strapped the duffle down to the back seat - where she used to sit - and wheeled the gyro out the back service doors to the alleyway behind the apartment block.

It turned out riding a gyro was no more difficult for Alita than picking up motorball. She knew the code to start it, having watched Hugo put it in dozens of times. It was fully fueled - again probably thanks to Diff - and it wasn't long before she had the throttle open on the northern ring road. This was a major thoroughfare that linked the factories. It was usually teeming with transports of all kinds, and rarely empty, even in the early hours of the morning. But the storm was breaking, and transport drivers avoided the roads during downpours, as the chance of accidents was high.

But Alita didn't care. She needed to feel the wind on her face, and the rain wiping the angry tears from her skin and metallic eyeblack with stinging impacts. The lightning flashed, and the thunder roared, and they combined to help Alita's mind go white with the pain and anger.

Sometime later, Alita parked the gyro on a hillock overlooking the train yards on the western side of Iron City. She'd found the spot by accident, as her mind slowly cleared. There were many freight cars lined up on sidings, being unloaded mostly, having been brought in from the more distant farms by the nuclear-powered locomotives. There were also a lot of people coming off what were ostensibly freight trains. Alita didn't know if this was unusual or not, but there were many new mouths to feed if they were from the farms. Looking up past the hydrowall, she could see the storm heading south, sheets of rain visible under glowering clouds, and light in the east heralding the imminent sunrise.

The downpour had made the spot moist and cool, but the tropical sun would make it all steamy and unpleasant in a few short hours. But just on sunrise it was quite beautiful, with the disc of Zalem catching the rays of the morning sun before the light hit Iron City. Zalem, always getting the best of everything. Alita felt it spoiled the otherwise majestic vista, the play of darkness and light with the industriousness of mankind beneath. Alita turned away, and climbed back on the gyro - her gyro, she guessed. She couldn't see why Hugo wouldn't want her to have it. Thinking of him brought her mood down again, and introspection took over as she rode back home.

_How could I be so stupid, _she berated herself. _I've been so caught up with how much Hugo's death has affected me, I never stopped to think how _their _deaths must have affected the rest of his crew - his friends - and Tanji's family. Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ Alita vowed she wouldn't be so self-absorbed again. She'd make sure any of Hugo's money that she could spare would go to Tanji's family and Koyomi. She'd speak to them personally and pass on her condolences, and then, when she could find the time, and her contractual obligations allowed, she'd hunt down that scumbag Zapan and put an end to his pathetic existence, like she should have done the first time.

…

Pain. It all started with pain. His face was on fire, and something plopped down into his hands, but he couldn't focus on it. Trying to do so hurt even more. His mind just didn't want to know, and so he didn't know. His past was a blur - one that haunted his dreams. Like this dream. Like a roaring tunnel of pain and anguish, and the need for reveng...

"Zapan!" a woman's musical voice called to him. "You've slept in again. Time to get up." There was no admonishment in it - just pleasant understanding that the situation was what the situation was, and to make the best of it from this moment forward. Zapan could help but smile when Sara woke him. She was the most pleasant person he'd ever known, and he had no clue what he'd done to be so lucky to end up with her.

Sara had found him wandering the back alleys of Westside, of which there were many. She felt sorry for him, being so gravely injured, and took him to the best cyberdoc she knew. But the damage was too great, and they did what they could, but… it was something else his mind didn't want to know about, so it was a blur. The only thing that was clear was Sara's face, her beautiful smile, and her musical voice telling him everything would be all right, and that she wouldn't leave him in need - and she hadn't. They'd been together since that night.

Zapan lifted his head and opened his eyes. As he expected, Sara had her head thought the tent flap, and he marveled at her beautiful face, like an image out of a dream. She had raven hair, wild and shoulder-length, held back out of her face by a blue headband. Her eyes were a matching blue to her headband, or was it the other way around? They were kind eyes, and that was the one word everyone who knew Sara used to describe her. Kind. She had thin, dark brows that he'd never seen come together in anger or consternation, a dainty, slightly pointy nose, a ready smile surrounded by thin, softly pink lips, and a petite chin. She was a full meatgirl and almost defenseless by modern standards, but no one would ever think to cause her any harm. She just had that way about her, putting everyone around her at ease. Even him.

"Please hurry, I need your help," Sara continued, in a pleasant tone that didn't match the request. "There were another three trains of refugees that came into the yards overnight. They are all tired, scared and hungry. We can, at the very least, solve one of those problems for them." Zapan nodded and went to get up as Sara's face disappeared from the tent flap. From the light that was filtering into the tent, Zapan could tell the sun had been up long enough to shine over the hydrowall, and so the day was well underway.

He pulled on an old pair of jeans - quite the comedown from the genuine leather pants he used to wear. _But that doesn't matter,_ he reminded himself, _for you have Sara._ Then he grabbed his worn leather jacket. He pulled it on over the scarred and damaged decorations of his cyberbody, the markings of his former life that he presumed he'd tried to wipe out in a fit of rage. But that didn't matter either, for he had Sara. He'd been on a spiral down to hell, and she'd picked him up, got him fixed up, and gave his life meaning again. He owed her so much, more than he thought he could ever repay.

Stepping out of the tent, Zapan looked around the dilapidated out-buildings where the soup kitchen was located. It was off to the side of the rail yards, along the path where new arrivals by rail were sent for processing. The tent was located in an old, two-story, cement slab storehouse, now disused, probably because one, long-side wall had fallen down, leaving ragged ends of rebar protruding from the exposed floors. But it made good cover from the storms that battered Iron City at this time of year, as their tent would be no match for the torrential rain and howling winds. It looked like he'd slept through a big storm, too. There were a lot of puddles, churned up mud from many feet, and many pairs of feet still milling around, wondering if they would ever be able to settle in 'the city.' That's what the soup kitchen was here for - to help them as they arrived. Sara had devised it, organized its running and procurement, and motivated the volunteers that manned it. They all got free food for their efforts - everyone was welcome to that.

Yet these crowds seemed flighty - more stressed and disorganized than usual. Zapan was muscle to help move the big cauldrons of soup from the cooking area to the servery, and to get the hungry to line up, all orderly like. Then, and only then, would they be fed. But some just wouldn't listen.

He checked and there was already a large pot of soup on the table, but the crowd of new arrivals was milling around in front of the servery, so it was Zapan's job to motivate them into some semblance of order.

"There's plenty of soup, so get in line!" Zapan announced, waving his arm back and forth, indicating where the line should run. He knew Sara was watching him, and she liked it when he took charge. He just had to keep a lid on it, was all. That seemed to always be his problem.

The ragged humanity in front of him pulled back from the table and formed something akin to a line. There were men and women, old, middle-aged and young. A few had cybernetic replacements, but Zapan saw very few Total Replacement Cyborgs come through. He presumed they were of more used to the Factory, so they were separated from this flotsam before they arrived at the soup kitchen. That was just fine as far as Zapan was concerned. It made him the strongest one there, and to keep the piece, you had to be the strongest.

Zapan had to deal with those that were too out of it, shell shocked, or high on drugs to take instruction. Like the distracted-looking meatboy with no shoes, no brains, and almost no hair on his head. He was wandering around, groaning, looking like he was going to cut in the line that had formed, rather than move to the back. The old, ragged, and tired farmers - because Zapan was fairly sure that was what they were - who were in the front of the line would probably let him too, and that just wouldn't do.

As he started towards the young man, he glanced over at the front of the line. An old man, in a ragged coat and slouch hat, his face drawn and stained with tears, was being served a good portion of soup in a bamboo pulp cup and a chunk of crusty bread by Sara. As the man took the proffered meal, he looked up at Sara, and she gave him one of her trademark warm smiles.

"Now cheer up," she gently instructed him, "tomorrow will bring something good." With those words, the man straightened, as if a weight was lifted from his shoulders. He sniffled, looked down at the food, licked his lips, then looked back up at Sara.

"Thank you," he said in a raspy voice. Sara smiled at him again, and motioned for him to move to the eating area so she could give out the next portion.

Zapan reached the meatboy. He was definitely out of it, Zapan decided, and was wandering around, getting in the way, and nearly tripped Celaena and Varanus who were bringing out the next cauldron of soup. Zapan growled, and grabbed the boy by the collar, spinning him around.

"You want food, you GET IN LINE!" Zapan growled, shouting the last part loud enough that everyone in the line starred. Zapan was feeling really heated, almost to the point of wanting to hit someone, and this meatboy looked like he couldn't put up much of a fight. Zapan drew back his fist…

"Zapan!" Sara stated quietly, having come up behind him. Zapan dropped his fist and rolled his eyes to the sky. He'd let his anger out again. He felt sorry already. "Please, don't be violent." Her words were like whiplashes to him. They were such inconsequential words, but when they came from her… Zapan ran a hand through his unruly crop of blonde hair.

"I'm sorry, Sara," he began, admonishment evident in his tone, "when I get angry, I just…" She reached up and touched his face with her delicate hand. Her beautiful, delicate hand. The feeling was electric, like she had some inner dynamo that energized everything she touched.

"Just remember to be tolerant. My father is wrong about you. You really are a kind person."

"I'll try, Sara," was all Zapan could say as she took her hand away. Zapan didn't remember what Sara's father looked like, but an image of a pack of cybernetic dogs came unbidden into his mind. He shruged, and turned to walk back to his position, noting the meatboy was now correctly located in the line that was moving forward quickly now, with Celaena and Varanus, the brother and sister pair that were a big help around the kitchen, serving at the table. He knew Sara would be smiling after him, and he reached up to touch the spot where she'd touched his face with his cold, steel hand. The spot still tingled. He really was so lucky.

"Zapan," Celaena called, reaching down deep into the oversized pot for more soup, "this is almost empty. Could you bring the next one out to us, please?"

"OK," Zapan said, waving, and headed toward the kitchen. He walked through the opening that would have been a double door if it had still had doors, and into the only properly functional area of the disused storehouse. This area even had electricity and water. Walking past the old, rebuilt stoves rescued from a burnt down restaurant, Zapan went to the last row of burners holding a bubbling cauldron of soup, ready for the masses outside. He lifted the large pot with ease, mentally switching off the heat sensors in his hands so he wouldn't feel the heat from the handles, and carried out back outside to the line that was thankfully dwindling.

Zapan put the vat of soup down, receiving a thankful smile from Celaena, whisps of her platinum blonde fringe already sticking to her forehead and cheek with the heat of the soup and the warming morning, and glanced around. Those that were already fed were spreading out, looking for somewhere not muddy to eat. A few had wandered away down the main thoroughfare towards the inner city gates. It was down that way that the only functioning, non-vandalized, large city viewscreen in the western region was located. Zapan had never seen it activated, and hadn't seen any news or Factory sanctioned broadcasts for months. But as several refugees sat down below it and began eating, it registered their presence and switched on. Zapan saw that it was showing some report on Motorball. It was a sport more fanatically-followed in the east of Iron City, where people weren't all trying to find somewhere to sleep and wondering where the next meal might come from. Zapan didn't have much of an interest in it, but the insistent tone of the announcer drew his attention. He took a few steps away from the table to listen.

"And it had to be the most exciting opening game of a season since the retirement of Grewiska!" the announcer proclaimed, the champ, Jashugan, fighting to a standstill with the young up-and-comer, Alita, the Battle Angel! What a tussle. Nether Paladin gave quarter, even after the finish line!"

Zapan was staring at the screen… his mind glued to the images it showed. He saw the champion Jashugan disappear into a cloud of wheelsmoke, and when he emerged, he was holding onto the motorball, with a DEVIL on the other side of it. It was her! The DEVIL in his dreams! The one that had destroyed his life, stolen his blade, his Damascus Blade, he remembered now, and… he swallowed hard. Sweat poured from him.

"Gyaaaaaahhhhh!" he screamed, his mouth open impossibly wide. Varanus was walking past him, back towards the kitchen as he fell to the ground, clutching his face. He cried out again.

"H-hey?" Varanus began, leaning over Zapan, concern writ large on his face. "What's wrong?" Zapan looked through his fingers at the supersized screen. It had a close up of the woman in the motorball body. THAT WOMAN. The one responsible for…

"I - IT'S HER!" Zapan moaned, trying to scrabble back, away from the image he couldn't look away from. His eyes were streaming tears, and he was hyperventilating.

"Relax," Varanus said, leaning in closer. "Who are you talking about?" Zapan stared at the screen. The DEVIL was turning around to look into the camera. No, she was turning to look at him. Glare at him. Attack him! Cut his…

He saw her face on that night, the mask of anger and retribution. Felt the Damascus Blade ripped from his hands. Saw the sudden movement of her accelerated, combat body. Felt the pain… THE PAIN!

Sara turned to see what the commotion was about. She looked at the screen and then down at Zapan, writhing on the ground. Her face took on a worried look - something she almost never did. And she moved off towards her love.

Varanus was leaning over Zapan, trying to help him, but Varanus was only a meatboy, and not a very fit one at that. Zapan suddenly leaped up, pushing Varnaus roughly and absent-mindedly away. There was a sharp snap and Varanus's head was facing almost directly backwards from his body, the skin of his neck unnaturally twisted. He collapsed to the ground and one of his eyeballs popped out and his head bounced on the cobbles, trailing a bloody optic nerve.

Zapan staggered away a few feet, his eyes bulging. He was streaming tears, sweat and drool. He grimaced as his hands slowly reached up to his face. "This…" he began, his voice failed him, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "This isn't MY FACE!" he was shouting by the end.

Zapan's strong, metallic fingers dug into the flesh at his hairline, breaking synthskin and capillaries, blue cyberblood streaming. He pulled down, tearing and ripping all the work that had been done to give him a new face. Not his face, not his beautiful, extremely expensive face that had made him the best looking Hunter-Warrior in Iron City. Before that DEVIL came along. That Devil, Alita… He continued pulling down.

"What are you doing?" Sara's voice came to him, but it wasn't her usual, gentle, musical tone. It was sickened, horrified. And that seemed right, somehow. "Stop it, ZAPAN!" Sara shouted, a volume Zapan had never heard from her before. She reached for his shoulder, and he looked back at her, his face in tatters, far worse than the night she'd found him. At least that had been a clean cut, but this… the skin was ragged and weeping blue cyberblood, framing his metallic, exposed skull. His eyes were streaming, and he laughed, a small chuckle, like he'd found something he'd been missing, or was now missing something he'd found: _sanity._

Zapan lunged away, flinging his arm up to knock Sara's hand from his shoulder. But it was a wild, uncontrolled swing, powered by madness. The same fingers that had torn Zapan's own face off now bit into the soft, meatgirl neck of his savior, and her head detached from her body with ridiculous ease. The blood that pumped from that stump was cherry red. Sara's head tumbled through the air, going three yards to land in the last pot of soup. The last pot she would ever serve.

Zapan staggered a few feet, then stopped, huffing. Realizing that everything had gone very quiet, he looked around, and saw Sara's corpse lying on the ground behind him, the neck still pumping blood across the muddy ground. He looked from the body, to the trail of blood splatters leading to the servery. He walked over, muttering "What have I done, what have I done," and the staff and refugees alike gave him a wide berth.

He reached into the pot, lifting the severed head almost reverently out of the spoiled soup, muttering "Sara, Sara," and staggered off toward the ruined areas to the south, muttering and gasping, like a suffocating man hunting for a last breath, carrying the head with him.

The onlookers stood there stunned for several minutes, until the Factory Prefects arrived. They took down the details, and before the day was out, on bounty bulletin screens all across Iron City, a bounty read:

Reward 50 K chips.

Zapan.

Ex-Hunter Warrior.

Murderer.

Notable marks: damage to face.

Extremely dangerous.


	9. Chapter 8 - Reconciliation

Chapter 8 - Reconciliation

Alita awoke slowly, like she had the first day after first being re-embodied - in the current century. She floated up from that deep place where she'd dreamed for three hundred years. That dark chasm which held all the memories of her past life in a crushing grip, like the deepest trench at the bottom of the ocean - a water mass she only knew existed because she'd seen them from the moon. Her consciousness rose, shedding themes and events from her distant past, left only with what she remembered from her life in the past few months and the flashes of deep memory she'd salvaged during moments of deadly action. Yet there was more than enough in the near-past to leave her feeling uneasy as she opened her large, brown, kaleidoscopic eyes.

Looking up, Alita saw the now-familiar cracked plaster ceiling of the room she'd called hers since Ido had given it to her. But as she looked at it, tracing the fissures in the plaster with her eyes as she had done many times before on waking, she didn't feel as comfortable as she once had. Something was different. Perhaps it was the emotional turmoil of the night before, or the extreme exertion of the Pro Motorball race? Whatever it was, as Alita sat up and looked around, recognizing that she had slept into the afternoon by the position of the shafts of sunlight coming in through the high windows. The sense of unease she had thought was due to her now faded dreams stayed with her.

"I need to shake this off," Alita mumbled as she climbed out of the bed, intent on heading to the bathroom across the hall from her room. She was halfway to the door when a small sound caught her attention. She stopped dead in her tracks, turning her head sideways to look toward where the sound had come from, her unkempt hair falling across half her face. On the dresser, perched on top of a small stand, was the 'thing' Ido and Gerhad had given her the night before. _Kimji, _Alita remembered. It was hopping up and down on a small perch, and Alita thought it must want to join her. "Needy little thing, ain'tcha," Alita said to it as she walked towards it.

Recognizing her intent, it took to the air, flying adeptly across the few feet separating them and onto Alita's shoulder. It settled into the crook of her neck, nuzzling her on the chin line. Alita smiled at the little cutie, but still felt the unease she'd brought with her from her dreams.

Soon after, she ran the faucet and cleaned her hands, shining the purple and silver metal of her fingers on the crosshatch-decorated towel hung by the sink, then looked at herself in the mirror. Like her hands, her face and hair looked a little dirty and bedraggled from the night's activities, so she went to work cleaning herself up, after putting Kimji on the towel rail. Alita quietly whistled a little tune she'd heard in the markets while washing and scrubbing, and it made Kimji bop up and down on the towel rail, and the unease shifted for a time. She brushed her hair and polished the metallic eyeblack under her eyes, before retracting the silver-highlighted bands with a thought and cleaning the skin under them. Finally, removing the clothes she wore out of the Motorball Arena - and obviously feel asleep in when she arrived home after dawn - she got to work with metal polish, bringing up the luster of the chrome, burnished steel, and royal purple panels in her Pro Motorball body, and polishing out the nicks and grazing from the race.

Satisfied she looked like a Paladin again, and not something dragged through a back alley at 4am, she picked up Kimji and went back into her room. After depositing the little creature back on his perch, Alita put on a black gym top, baggy grey exercise pants, socks and white runners. She checked her look in her full-length mirror, and after nodding at herself in approval, sank into a crouch.

Kimji watched on, his single, large eye unblinking, as Alita took a deep breath and cleared her mind. She let the air out slowly while tuning the vibrations of her body to the frequency required for the techniques she wished to practice. Once attuned, Alita opened her eyes, and from the crouch, sprang into the air. Moving like a ballet dancer in zero-G, she tumbled twice in the air of her room, her feet coming within scant inches of the ceiling with twin kicks. Reacquired by gravity, she fell back toward the floor, reaching out with her hands and tucking into a roll as she reached the carpet-covered boards. The roll was executed superbly, the rug taking up whatever sound her metal and polymer hands might have made on contact, and she came out of the roll with her left heel against the floor, leg extended, and her right leg shot out, executing a swift double kick before gravity once again got involved and pulled her toward the floor again, in a full front-back splits position.

Alita would have made a tremendous bang on the floorboards if she hadn't caught herself on her fingertips, lifting the split off the floor so she was balancing between her hands. Moving to her right hand, she shot the left hand out, exercising several strikes while showing supreme control of her cybernetic form as she spun and lifted her body and legs, still in the spit, to a position not dissimilar to one she'd performed when showing Ido and Gerhad what the Berserker body could do several months before - an inverted splits on a one-handed handstand. Not to be outdone by _that_ body, Alita moved to a single finger stand, and then drawing her left arm in, spun again, snapping out kicks up, down, left and right. Finally, flipping herself up vertical again, she finished with a big forward leap kick that left her right foot back behind her right ear.

Touching down gently on her left foot, she brought the right foot down, rolling her shoulders and moving her neck left and right to check for any movement issues. Nodding to herself after a moment, she looked over at her dresser to check Kimji's reaction. It was watching her with what Alita thought might have been a shocked expression from its small perch. Alita 'huffed' quietly, the left side of her mouth quirking, and walked toward the perch. As she neared it, Kimji unfurled the odd, ear-like appendages on the top of its body/head, and took to the air, alighting on her shoulder and nuzzling her cheek.

Smiling down at the little creature, Alita turned to walk toward the door, and _that_ was when she heard voices downstairs.

One she recognized immediately. It was Ido, of course. His pleasant, doctorly tones she could pick anywhere. But the other one… it had a gruff, yet conciliatory tone she was sure she'd never heard in the clinic before. A male, Alita was fairly sure, and it did sound familiar, but not in a good way. The unease returned, and Alita decided she needed to know who this other person was. She quietly made her way down the main staircase - with its metal, curling balustrade - and into the central treatment room of the clinic…

...but the voices weren't coming from there. They were coming from the kitchen out back, in the living area. Alita stepped around the newel at the end of the balustrade, in a low combat crouch similar to the one she had used the first time she had walked down those stairs, and looked into the kitchen. Ido was sitting at the kitchen table, facing someone with their back to Alita. Ido saw Alita approaching, and stood.

"Alita," he began, "I'm glad you're finally up. We have a visitor." At that, the man who's back was towards Alita pushed his chair back, and the hackles on the back of Alita's neck rose. She recognized that movement, but she just couldn't place it. Possibly because of the form this cyborg wore? Alita's careful stance widened slightly, ready for movement, causing Kimji to flutter its ear rotors. The man began to turn, and when Alita caught sight of his profile, alarm bells started ringing deep in her psyche. She felt her acceleration chip activate, and adrenal pumps and combat stim injectors prime. Alita's head tilted sideways slightly, her brows furrowed, and her eyes narrowed.

The man turned his long face fully toward her, his own dark eyes a little wide, his thin, pinky-orange lips pushed together with the hint of a hopeful smile near the edges. Dark, short, wavy hair, tan skin, prominent eyebrow ridges, and a long nose, broken at least once, and still healing from a burn. His prominent, almost square jaw, with strong stubble lines was unmistakable. She didn't immediately recognize him in a street body, and without the face shield and green and while track markings, but suddenly, his face overlaid with the Paladin she'd nearly killed the night before. This face was now calmer, more 'normal,' but she still saw it an inch beneath her blue-bathed Damascus Blade. Her facial augments activated, sliding the metallic eyeblack below her staring eyes.

Ajakutty.

With a guttural roar, Alita ran towards the kitchen, her right hand swung back, two fingers extended and bathed in blue flame. Kimji took off from Alita's shoulder as she began to run, hovering around and finally settling on the top of a lamp, with a clear view of the kitchen. It was all Ido could do to interpose himself between Alita and her prey, a look of horror on his normally so jovial features.

"Alita, NO!" Ido exclaimed. It was all Alita could do to stop her headlong charge before she blew Ido's torso all over the metal gates near the back entrance with her plasma lance. She came to a stop, hard up against her father, who had slid backward to be hard up against Ajakutty. Ido was the meat in a cyborg sandwich. Slightly toasted meat, thanks to Alita's blue flame, that she shook to put out, her arm vents, on the forearm in this Pro Motorball body, exhaling blue fumes.

A few minutes later, Alita was treating Ido's burnt hand, doing her usual excellent job at first aid. Gerhad, who had been making tea at the sink during the altercation, had offered to do it, but Alita wouldn't let anyone else fix the mistake she had made. Ido sat back in his kitchen chair, wincing a little as Alita carefully bandaged his hand, and Gerhad and Ajakutty looked on. The silence was more than a little awkward.

"I'm so sorry, Father," Alita said for the fifth time, her eyes wide and brow creased in worry. Ido looked up at her and nodded, but this time she went on, her mind calm enough to process what had happened. "The anger from the track. The things _he _said…"

"Yes, Alita" Ido cut in, not wanting Alita to wind herself up again. "That's why Ajakutty is here. I've known him for many years, from my time working as a Tuner at the track. He came to apologize to both me, _and_ you."

"That's right," Adjukutty cut in, leaping into the conversation, sensing his opening like a seasoned professional, "I'm terribly sorry for what I said on the track last night. It was horrible and wrong, and I'm also terribly sorry that my presence here has caused all this…" He opened his hands to indicate the spilled drinks, open tubes of disinfectant and healing balms, piles of gauze and bandages.

Alita looked at him, her gaze intent and her brows furrowed. He sensed she didn't believe him.

"I've explained it to Ido," 'kutty went on, and Ido nodded with a satisfied smile on his face as Alita looked to him, "but I owe you a full explanation, too." Alita looked back to Ajakutty, her lip twisted and her eyes rolling, but he carried on, undaunted. "It's the combat drugs and neural accelerators, you see. Not nearly as good as the ones Doc Ido makes for you. These ones make you all nasty, which I suspect is deliberate so the carnage out on the track will be more spectacular, as well as a feeling of invincibility, and heightened communication between the flesh and machine." He looked down at his hands, quite good quality, synthskin covered models, that only the rich and the well-patronized Motorball Paladins could afford. "They are also very addictive, which can lead to overdoses…" Ajakutty broke off there, and looked up at Alita. His eyes were shiny, and she saw him bite the edge of his lip for a moment. Alita's gaze softened, seeing real emotion from someone she'd only ever seen as a combat monster out on the track. She gave him a gentle smile as she clipped up the bandage on Ido's hand, and Ajakutty looked back down to _his_ hands.

Alita put down the remaining bandage roll and reached over to place a silver and purple hand on 'kutty's shoulder. Even on a Paladin as compact and lythe as Ajakutty, her hand looked small, nearly childlike. It was the first time she'd ever touched another Motorball player without the intent to smash them to pieces, or worse. It actually felt good.

"I had never really thought about the situation for other Motorball players," Alita said in a quiet voice, and 'kutty looked up at her. "I didn't realize how good I have it with my team. But now that you've filled me in, it does make a lot of sense." Ajakutty nodded a few times. "Perhaps Ido might be able to help you out with some better quality game drugs? Something with fewer side-effects?" She looked over at Ido.

"Oh, he already has," Gerhad said, putting a foil bag on the table next to a fresh cup of tea she had just finished preparing. "In here is a month's supply of the same drugs you use for peak performance." Alita looked from Ido to Gerhad and scowled. "Now don't worry," Gerhad went on, "we've still got plenty for your needs."

Alita leaned over towards Gehad and cupped a hand to her ear. "But _those_ drugs will help my _competitor_ to perform better," she whispered.

"But that's something else I wanted to talk to you about," Ajakutty said, and Alita glanced over at him, her brow heavily furrowed, lips pursed and her head pushed forward, realizing he had enhanced hearing. "You taught me a great lesson in humility on the track last night. I've thought about it a lot since then, which is the reason I came over today to apologize. Myself, and Bergerad, humbly request to be on your team in the next race, the first Teams Event."

"But why ask me?" Alita retorted, pulling her head back and looking to the side. "I don't get to decide that." Alita was adamant, but wondered why Ido was smiling at him, and Gerhad was giggling behind her hand.

"But that's where you're wrong," Ajakutty replied, his face serious. "As winner..."

"Co-winner," Alita cut in to remind him.

"Sorry, co-winner," Ajakutty corrected himself, "of the first match of the season, you get to pick _your_ team from the active players in First League, one at a time, with…"

"Jashugan!" Alita finished for him, nodding. "Teams were always chosen by the Motorball Authority in Second League," Ido and Ajakutty nodded at this, "but it's different in Pro League! I'd forgotten that little point."

"That's right," Ajakutty agreed, properly smiling for the first time since Alita had tried to kill him only minutes before. "And you get to choose. Those big, hulking Paladins are OK I suppose, but with fast, agile Paladins working together, I think we could grease the floor with them."

"Hrm," Alita said, looked at Ajakutty, her face neutral, her eyes blinking every few seconds. Ajakuitty looked back, trying not to stare into those large, mesmerizing brown eyes that just over twelve hours before had held the look of Death, come to collect on his life. 'Kutty felt like he was staring down a deadly predator, and to glance away would mean certain death - a show of weakness that proved he was too weak to survive. Moments ticked by, and he saw in his peripheral vision Ido get up and join Gerhad at the sink, doing busy work rather than wait for an outcome. When 'kutty finally glanced away from the inadvertent staring competition to look up at Ido, he mouthed back 'she's thinking about it.' Ajakutty nodded and waited.

A few moments later, Alita seemed to snap out of her furor and fix Ajakutty with an even more focused, predatory stare. She leaned back on the counter behind her and folded her arms.

"Maybe," she said. After a few moments of silence, Ajakutty lifted his eyebrows in question and Alita went on. "While I appreciate your coming over here to apologize, and your reasons for being so offensive on the track last night, I'm still not ready to just roll over and become best buds in the team event. You tried to steal _my_ number!" Ajakutty looked at her defensive posture, fingers on her right hand straightening and blue flame starting to dance around them again. But then Ido stepped up beside his adopted daughter and put his arm around her shoulders, his burnt hand resting on the 99 on her left arm. Alita looked up at him, her face troubled, and the fire on her fingers went out.

"I want to apologize for that, too," Ajakutty said, nodding to Ido as he stepped away from his cooling daughter again. "It was a little thing I liked to do between seasons - moving up through the paired numbers, like ascending to Zalem, as if _I'd_ ever make Final Champion." Ajakutty glanced down for a moment, before looking up at Alita again. "I was even sponsored by the Factory of the number I was using that season. Kind of like a lucky charm. Of course, I'd never think of challenging Jashugan for his 00, and I should never have been so prideful to challenge you for the 99." Ajakutty stopped, his apology complete, and Alita took a deep breath, held it for a moment and then let it out with a sigh.

"OK, well, thank you for understanding my number is important to me, but I'm still only considering your offer," Alita replied, flicking the loose strand of hair away from her eyes. "It's a good idea, actually, but I have to feel right about it, and that may take a little time…"

"OK, well," Ajakutty said, "Bergerad and I will hope for your feelings to change by tomorrow night." Alita nodded agreement.

"So, if we presume for a moment that I do go with your idea," Alita continued, "for it to work, we'd need Crimson Wind onboard, too."

"Oh," Ajakutty said, and they all turned to look at him. "Oh I think I have some more apologizing to do if you want any hope of getting her for your team…"

Alita took a deep breath, and letting it out with another long sigh, looked at him with a troubled glare.

Ajakutty shrugged, "It's a combat sport, Sister. You make and break pacts, and get caught up in deadly feuds all the damn time. But it's all part of the game. The great game of Motorball." Alita could tell with the way 'kutty's eyes took on a faraway look that he was dedicated to that ideal. "But I'd best get going. I have to change Zafiel's opinion of me before tomorrow night. That could take some doing."

"Just be honest and forthright with her," Alita said, giving Ajakutty a thump on the back as they walked him out the door at the end of the kitchen, behind the metal screen. "It's mostly worked on me, hasn't it? And I was going to kill you!"

Ajakutty 'humphed.'

"Well she might just feel the same way, but I won't have Doc Ido to get between Zafiel and me this time!" 'kutty finished. Both Alita and Ido nodded at that.

They waved Ajakutty goodbye as he disappeared off into the throng of people out in the afternoon sun. Then Ido turned to Alita.

"Are you really going to turn down his offer?" Ido asked straight up, looking over his glasses at Alita.

"Oh no," Alita said, a cheeky smile playing around the edges of her mouth. "I'm totally on board with it. I just want him to sweat a bit and work for it. After what Ajakutty and Bergerad pulled last night, they have some winning of my trust to do."

"Ah, well that is sensible," Ido said, nodding. "But I've never seen Ajakutty so apologetic. You must have really opened his eyes on the track last night."

"Well, it was probably more that I was going to open up his head, from the front, that woke him up to himself," Alita replied, and Ido glanced down at her, eyes wide. "It's like 'kutty said, it's a combat sport, and bloodlust gets up, and… well I didn't kill him, clearly. He's walking around just fine today. Let it go." Ido shugged, and sighed.

"Oh and I had a bit of a breakthrough last night, after the match," she continued, in all earnestness, which elicited a raised right eyebrow from her foster father. "I've got the funds - for both projects - and some for the clinic too, but I have to go out for a short time to 'make amends' for my own mistakes of late. Do you mind?"

"Alita, my dear," Ido said, putting a fatherly hand around her shoulder, "It's your life. I know you can look after yourself now - you're not some fourteen-year-old, defenseless waif. You're a Motorball Paladin and any street punk would have to be a fool to take you on after last night. But use your jacket with the hood and keep a low profile. Crowds of fans can be more troublesome than a back alley full of cyborg killers, and you can't beat them to a pulp to get out of it!"

"On it," Alita said, grabbing her jacket from where she'd left it the night before on a hook near the door, then chuckled slightly as she walked behind the Clinic. She put the jacket on and checking for the racks of chips she'd put into the pocket when she'd arrived home. Moments later Alita rode out on a gyro Ido instantly recognized.

"I suppose you want me to look after and feed your flying eyeball, too?" Ido said with a slight smile, jerking his head Kimji who was watching them through the open doorway from the metal screen inside the door.

"Yes, please. I'll catch up on how to do that later, and be home for dinner, _and_ I'll stay out of trouble," Alita called, waving as she accelerated off down the street, expertly dodging through crowds of pedestrians like she'd been riding on her own for years.

Ido was left standing there, eyebrow raised yet again. He doubted she would keep to any of those statements. She just had too much going on. He sighed and went back inside, collecting Kimji from the metal screen.

"C'mon, furry eyeball," he said in a gentle tone to the little creature as it climbed onto his finger. "I have to get back to work. These cyborgs won't fix themselves!"

...

Alita turned and walked away from the doorway of the ramshackle building, with it's peeling paint and rotted timbers. Even the front door, with once-was-glossy, deep blue paint was peeling and sagging. It wasn't a well-to-do area, and the people who lived there were struggling to get by. The older couple, with the tween twins watching from a 'safe' distance inside the dwelling, stood there, mouths agape, with the stacks of chip holders in their hands. It was probably more money than they'd seen in an entire decade, and it looked like they needed it. His cyberarm, sparking and moving erratically, was on the verge of failure, her face, marked by the passage of a disease they clearly hadn't had the money to treat - until now. The twins, looking thin to the point of malnourishment.

She was angry at herself for not thinking of this sooner. That money could have been in their hands months ago. Helping them months ago.

Alita knew she wasn't an orator. She didn't feel good at making impassioned speeches. And so she hadn't. "I'm sorry," she'd said when the couple had answered the door. "Your son will be avenged." She'd emptied the bag of chip carriers into their hands, turned and walked away. Seeing the state of Tanji's family, he must have been supplementing their income with his 'night work.' When that ended with his death, things had taken a sharp downward turn for the family.

"T-thank you, Battle Angel," the husband said, his eyes glistening. His wife was mute, clutching his arm, staring at the chip stacks, then at Alita, then at the chip stacks again, as if they were a mirage that would vanish at any moment.

"That's Alita, from the motorball," one of the twins said to the other.

"Wow!" said the other child. "I didn't know Tanji knew someone famous!"

"Damn," Alita mumbled as she headed for the bike. She'd forgotten that her celebrity would make it hard to go anywhere in Iron City unrecognized. This was supposed to be an anonymous gift. Well, at least they could afford good medical care, food and repairs, now. She felt a little better about that, but she would feel a whole lot better when she found Zapan, and killed him.

She climbed back on the gyro and sped off. Alita had no idea how to find Koyomi's family, or if they even needed help. From everything she's heard say about Koyomi's clan, they were doing OK. It was Koyomi herself who might need help. Her recordings had painted a rather fearful picture of what she expected to find when she returned, but Alita had checked all the Bounty Kiosks in Eastside, and there was no price on Koyomi's head.

"So Koyomi might even be heading back right now," Alita said to herself as she weaved the gyro through the darkening streets. That idea gave her a little comfort. She hadn't realized how much she missed Koyomi's quick smile and friendly banter, and she suddenly wanted to see her again. To say sorry for Koyomi's twin losses, and make amends for her own failure to keep the men in Koyomi's life safe.

Alita had to make amends… she had to.

"Come home safe, and soon, Koyomi," Alita said to the wind rushing past her face, as she rode on to the Motorball stadium.


	10. Chapter 9 - Troubled Homecoming

_\- Sorry for the lack of updates for the past 7 months. Life has not been kind. But I've come to terms with that now, and I want to finish this project. So henceforth it moves on apace! Also, this chapter doesn't have Alita in it (blasphemy, I know!). Instead, we find out what's happening with Koyomi, and boy, it's a LOT! I hope you enjoy it. WARNING: Possibly controversial content. The anime purists (who probably don't read this anyway) many not be happy. -_

**Chapter 9 - Troubled Homecoming**

The explosion was a blossom of roiling flame in the twilight that lit the darkening evening with a terrible glow. It grew from nothing to be a short-lived, orange sun, some 20 ft from the back of the speeding Factory train. The concussive detonation was deafening. The accompanying shockwave threw Koyomi back against the rear door of the armored, 'defense post' caboose. She threw up an arm to protect her face, as shrapnel scored her cheek, and forearm through her linen shirt. Fortunately, the bulk of the flying metal thudded harmlessly into the flack jacket she'd won from the Train Mercs, in a card game the night before.

For Koyomi, the world had suddenly intruded on her thoughts with all the subtlety of a speeding factory train. Moments before, she had been standing at the very back of the train, hands on the railing, staring back along the tracks that sped away from under her and into the gathering gloom like a snake across the barren landscape of the northern plains. She had been thinking wandering thoughts about going back to Iron City. With the death of Tanji, and what might have happened to Hugo, she had some unfinished business that would decide, one way or the other, if she'd stay in Iron City or move permanently to Farm 23. Koyomi had spent two months there and felt healthier for it. She'd also picked up some 'skills' from her cousins, who didn't have the Motorball games to keep them entertained, and so had taught Koyomi to gamble - something they'd soon regretted. It turned out she was very, _very_ good at it, and had used these newfound skills to good advantage so far on the train trip back to Iron City.

Farm 23 had treated her well. The air was better there, dryer, and things were far less complicated. Or they had been, until word started coming in of raiders from the north, calling themselves the Barjack, that had begun hitting the outlying Factory farms. Koyomi had just started thinking about how she was glad to be avoiding any direct confilct, when she just managed to make out a whistling noise over the clatter of the train wheels on the tracks...

Another detonation ripped through the darkening night off to the right of the train. It was a muted, baso 'krump' to Koyomi's still-ringing ears. Shrapnel peppered the side of the defense post and made the caboose sway on the rails, forcing Koyomi to fight for balance.

"Crap," Koyomi felt herself say as she spun to work the old door handle. It swung freely, and dismay colored Koyomi's face as she realized the mechanism was damaged. _Maybe I broke it when I hit the door?_ Koyomi considered. Adrenaline was hiding pain from her, but that wouldn't last long. She yanked at the door handle, her eyes wide and teeth bared, but it wouldn't budge.

Koyomi knew her hearing was improving slightly when she noticed the sound of the cobbled-together attack car before she saw it. The noise of the struggling engine drew her concentration away from the door handle, to see the vehicle cresting a rocky outcrop before becoming airborne, and then crashing down to the ground, in the deeper shadows of the ridge some 30ft from the train, almost level with Koyomi's position. The car, some older design with a wide wheelbase that was so different from the vehicles in Iron City and the farms, recovered well from the jump and speed along next to the rear of the train.

In the fading light, she could still see a man with a feral grin, way too many piercings, and a piecemeal cyberarm at the wheel. Another raider, this one almost a full TR with many bulky, armored components suggesting he was a combat model, was stowing a grenade launcher inside the cupola in which he sat, occupying the back half of the converted sedan. Koyomi gulped as the hulking cyborg clutch the handles of the biggest, nastiest mounted chain gun a young woman from the streets of Iron City had ever seen, attached to a sliding mount on the attack car's roof.

Eyes going wide at the whir of the chaingun powering up, Koyomi threw herself prone as the TR opened up on the back of the train. The flash of the rotating barrels and the tracer rounds it unleashed lit the evening around the train as the Barjack attackers hosed down the caboose hardpoint. The noise of armor buster shells tearing through tortured metal was deafening, and Koyomi put her hands over her ears as shells flew over her head and pelleted fragments of glass and molten shards of metal rained down on her.

Over the din of the incoming fire, a new sound emerged; a siren, calling the Train Mercenaries to battle. As the glass rain slowed, Koyomi looked up to see the attack car accelerating up the right side of the train, and a large, red emergency light flashing above her, somehow miraculously undamaged.

"Emergency, emergency! Threat detected," the amplified, mechanical voice of a Deckman stated. "Deploying defensive measures." Koyomi didn't know what that meant, although it was about damn time. But then, it probably involved a lot more bullets - not something she wanted to be involved with! There was a clunk and metallic grinding sound, like electric winches pulling or pushing something heavy. It was coming from above her, and inside the carriage. Koyomi remembered a large metal bulge in the ceiling behind the now-shot-up door she'd been trying to get through, and glancing up, she saw the internal bulge moving up through the ceiling of the hardpoint caboose.

"Oh geez," Koyomi said and pulled her head back down, hands over her ears as the attack car swerved back into view and dropped back behind the train. She was sure the next fusillade from the raider's chaingun would shred the back of the caboose, and not be slowed even slightly as the high caliber rounds tore a young Asian woman to tatters. Koyomi grit her teeth, tensing as the whining of the chain gun speeding back up reached a painfully high note.

Yet the hail of death and destruction never came. Instead, a deep, rhythmic chug announced shells from a mounted autocannon turret that was now extended above the caboose. The heavy munitions scythed through the attack car and its occupants, to thud into the dry, sandy soil along the train line and throw up sprays of gravel. Koyomi looked up to see the demise of the car, as it too was engulfed in a spectacular fireball, throwing dented and punctured armor panels in all directions. Koyomi saw the occupants, thrown clear of their disintegrating car, were but flailing shadows against the fireball before they too were engulfed, mid-flight, and disappeared as the conflagration expanded. Koyomi felt the shockwave and the heat of the blast wash over her, but was surprisingly - to her anyway - unharmed.

'Huh," Koyomi breathed, still trying to process what she'd just witnessed, and was just getting to her feet when another two attack cars and several bikes crested a ridge the train had just passed. With howls and jeers Koyomi could only just hear as her ears were recovered from the explosions, they gunned their engines and chased after the train.

'_I've had enough of this!' _Koyomi thought to herself and gripped the door handle with both hands. Working it frantically, she pulled, pushed, and rattled the mechanism, all to no avail. She stepped back, broken glass crunching under her feet, and grabbed the handrail. She was about to start kicking the door when it unexpectedly flung open, and a burly, cybernetic arm reached out to grab Koyomi by the collar of her flack jacket, eliciting a surprised 'eeep!' from the young woman as it dragged her roughly inside. The vague outline of a military man with an assault rifle attached to a harness took one step out, looked around, and then stepped back in, slamming the door shut again.

Koyomi staggered inside the caboose, looking around at the mess the normally orderly space had become. Red emergency lights bathed the smashed seating and torn hammocks of the 'Rear Sector' Train Mercenaries quarters. Ammo boxes were tipped over, and at least half the Mercs were on the floor or huddled up against the remains of the furniture. Their clothing was glistening in places, and it took Koyomi a moment to realize they were wounded and bleeding, the color of the blood hidden by the red light. The remaining Mercs were milling around, glancing nervously at the side of the caboose. Koyomi followed their gazes and saw the myriad of holes in the side of the carriage, made by the chain gun attacks of the now downed attack car. Through the holes, lights flickered from the headlights and spotlights of the second wave of Barjack attackers as they closed in.

Everyone in the carriage looked toward Koyomi, many of whom she'd had occasion to get to know, thanks to the card games and gambling that had put her in the bad books of some of the Mercs. She was suddenly very self-conscious until she realized that they weren't looking at her, but at the big cyborg behind her. Having personal experience in what damage a powerful cyborg body could do to her, Koyomi rubbed the arm above the copper bracelet that meant so much to her and never left her wrist. While healed, the arm still ached at the breakpoint from time to time, and glancing over her shoulder, she quickly slipped out of the way to let Sergeant Lutes address the Train Mercenaries unhindered.

He stepped forward, and the red light showed off his impressive build. A TR, Lutes was clearly a combat model, and the nicks, scratches, and bullet impact dents on his heavily used yet well cared for frame attested to his experience. The red light gave him an even more menacing appearance, but Koyomi had found him one of the nicest, most decent Mercs on the train. He had a hard, confident look to 'his' face, if it was even the face he'd been born with. With TR's it was so hard to know, unless you shocked them out and went exploring with a knife - not something Koyomi had ever even desired to do.

"Listen up, Meatheads," Sergeant Lutes snapped at the milling Mercs from around his cigar butt. "Didja think _all_ these trips would be paid holidays? It's time to get busy and earn ya Chips. You are _weapons-free_…" On speaking those words, which Koyomi quickly realized were a command code, the submachine guns locked to the backpacks the Mercs wore detached with a metallic, wiring sound, and swung under their right arms to present the weapons in a forward-facing position on a movable gimbal arm, ready to be held and fired. As each suited merc took hold of the handgrip of the weapon, a targeter sight swung from the backpack, over their shoulder, to cover their right eye.

Some of the Mercs were elated to finally get to shoot something. Koyomi saw Carson and Hernadez start leaping around, pretending to shoot at each other. Trigger discipline was non-existent, causing other Mercs nearby to shy away. While others, like the quiet Benson and the one the other Mercs called Nervous Nash, were sweating and shaking, looking at the proffered weapon like it was a snake coiled to strike. Koyomi felt none too comforted by either reaction, and rolled her eyes with exaggerated slowness.

"Just don't go shooting each other, or me for gawd sakes!" Sergeant Lutes continued. "I'm looking at you, Carson and Hernadez!" Several of the Mercs gave a nervous chuckle, and Lutes flipped the butt of the spent cigar in his mouth to the other side. "Spread out, two forward, two back, and two to the roof, don't get in the way of the autocannon turret, unless you like the idea of your guts decorating the _lerverly _countryside we find ourselves traveling through."

The men started to move, and Lutes threw out an arm to stop Carson and Hernadez, who were heading for the mangled back door. "Just one more word of advice to y'all. You might think that jumping from the back of the train and taking your chances with the hard ground might be a better bet than fighting these _raiders," _Lutes almost spat the last word. "Weeelll don't! The packs you have locked to your bodies provide you with armor, ammo and coms, but also come with a... let's call it a '_deterrent'_ for dereliction of paid duty, as stipulated in the contract you signed to get this gig. Get more than 30 feet from the train, and your packs will detonate, after a 15-second warning. Seems the Factory don't want your kits falling into enemy hands. Or you running off with them. Or you running off, period." Lutes took the cigar butt out of his mouth and poked the nearest merc in the chest with a metallic digit. "So defend the train. All your lives depend on it. Go!"

The last word was like a starter's gun. The Mercs stopped looking at what was effectively the bombs clamped around their torsos and started moving toward their stations. Koyomi went over to the nearest injured Merc, Malc was his name if she remembered correctly, looking to help in any way she could. He was holding his side, below the now activated battle vest, and there was a deeper red oozing between his fingers. She'd learned how to do rudimentary first aid since the broken arm, and was reaching for a first aid bag when the turret above their heads started firing again, and then three loud 'thumps' sounded from the shot-up-side of the armored caboose, followed by the whine of drill bits biting into inch thick armor.

All eyes turned toward the sounds of drilling in the wall, and at almost the same time, four new holes appeared in the side of the caboose, in a roughly 8-foot by 4-foot rectangle, through which clamps expanded and spread out across the perforated armor. With more sounds of protesting metal, a ragged hole of the same dimensions was torn in the carriage's side as chains attached to the clamps retracted, taking the framed section of wall with it. The damaged armor panel hit the sand behind the train with a thump, and the remaining Mercs stared out the hole, looking at the attack cars headlights and spotlights, those without flash suppression blinding themselves to what would happen next.

Shielding her eyes from the glare with a free hand, Koyomi could just make out another large TR cyborg in the open back of the largest attack car, hoisting a long tube with a lump on the front onto his shoulder. A moment later, it became obvious that this was a rocket launcher as the munition sped across the relatively short distance between the car and the train, to impact above the caboose with yet another deafening explosion. Koyomi watched, dumbstruck, as flame and the mechanics of the turret fell back through the column it had been raised up through shortly before. It crashed down on Carson and Hernandez, who disappeared under the avalanche of flaming metal and debris with screams that mingled with the sound of the cascading, mangled parts.

Koyomi saw what would happen next, even if the flash blind Mercs in front of her did not, and she leaped into action. She sprang over a metal rations transport cube away from the armor breach as gunfire erupted from both the mercs spotlighted within the carriage and the raiders in their vehicles. She ground her teeth and tried not to scream, hands over her ears, as the world fragmented from a hail of bullets. Just when she thought it would never end, a sudden impact in her side made her see stars, and the ferocious stab of pain drove her battered mind into the relative safety of unconsciousness.

* * *

The caboose was quiet when Koyomi groaned, rolling over and feeling pain in her side. She listened carefully over the still-ringing buzz of her tortured ears, and hearing no reports of gunfire, gingerly sat up to find a large, but deformed slug embedded in the side of her flack jacket. It must have ricocheted off a solid object before hitting her, Koyomi reasoned, as it's size suggested it would have torn her in two, otherwise. Checking herself over with a hastily retrieved penlight from one of the pockets in her cargo pants - amazing the old, and useful fashions coming back in again - she discovered she was relatively intact. Not wishing to test her luck any further, Koyomi began climbing out of her refuge to discover the scene of devastation in the rest of the caboose.

Most of the lights were either out or smashed by bullets or shrapnel, and the floor was slick and sticky in patches, caused by fluids Koyomi did _not _want to contemplate. The smell was raw, metallic, and gut-churning. But what Koyomi saw as she panned the small penlight around made her spin to throw up. Wherever she looked, she saw the shredded remains of Mercs… people… people she recognized. People she had laughed with, played cards with, and some she had feared when she beat them. Nash, tangled with three other eviscerated mercs, so it was hard to work out which remains belonged to whom. Benson, sprawled back on a transport crate, his side missing, guts dangling free, and a hole neatly drilled through his head at his right temple. Hernandez, just a dismembered head, the rest of him smashed and burnt under the wreckage of the autocannon turret. And so many more.

She had to hurry to find a corner that didn't have a body sprawled in it. She couldn't bring herself to throw up on the scattered remains of humanity within the carriage, just in case one of them was still alive. After evacuating her stomach, she wiped her mouth on a handkerchief from one of her many pockets, and drawing several deep breaths through her mouth, she moved gingerly through the splayed bodies to peek out the jagged hole in the side of the train.

There was no sign of the attack cars, but she could just hear them over the ringing in her ears, so they weren't far away. She decided to check the more intact forms for life, in hopes of being able to help them, when she felt a strong hand grip her ankle. She started to scream, but caught it, as she shone the light down and saw Sergeant Lutes, prone, with his hand around her ankle. He was missing his right arm, torn off near the shoulder, and Koyomi could see the end of his metallic spine protruding from where his torso ended above where the hips would be on a biological man. He was struggling to speak, and Koyomi noticed a number of large caliber holes in his torso. His left eye was smashed out, but his right eye, with its distinctive red cybertargeter, wobbled back and forth as if it was having trouble locking onto her.

"Ge.." Lutes began, but he didn't seem to be able to form the words. Brow furrowed, Koyomi fought back tears as she leaned closer to make out Lutes' horse whispers over the sound of the train and the sporadic gunfire. "Get a helmet," Lutes finally managed, thrusting a helmet into Koyomi's hands with his remaining arm, "and, uhhh, get out… of here. They… they are going to be… blowing the couplings. If you're here when that happens…" Lutes stopped talking, and Koyomi turned her head a few seconds later to look at the slack face of a dead man.

"No," Koyomi mumbled, tears trickling down her face to patter on the dead cyborg's carapace. "You were one of the few who was genuinely nice to me." Koyomi stayed there, head bowed for a few moments, until closer gunfire and shouting gave her the motivation to move again. If Lutes knew it was dangerous to stay in the caboose, she had to make her way back up the train. She stood up, putting on the helmet that wasn't quite far too big for her and over-tightening the strap. Koyomi wiped her face, determined and angry that her plan to leave before the raiders started operating anywhere near Farm 23 had turned out to be the worst idea she'd ever had.

She moved toward the engine-ward door, striding purposefully and trying not to glance back at the carnage, and so was totally unprepared when someone came rushing through the door she was heading for and ran headlong into her. The only thing Koyomi was able to discern as she fell backward towards the floor was that this person might be the only one on the train that weighed less than she did! Considering child conscripts a possibility as soldiers in the depraved Barjack, she gripped her assailant and rolled, coming up on top quickly and drawing back a fist.

"Nooo!" a young woman's voice cried out from beneath Koyomi, arms drawn up over a face ringed with blonde hair. "Please don't hit Shumira. Shumira is soooorrryyy!" The last word melted into a wail of fear, and Koyomi dropped her fist.

"You're not a Barjack raider," Koyomi said, fetching out her penlight and shining it in this girl's face. Koyomi was instantly struck by how pretty the young woman looking around her hands was, with fine features, wide, brown eyes, some type of native complexion, and voluminous, straw-blonde hair that she kept back with a patterned bandanna. Her jacket was functional, but damaged in places, and would be exactly zero protection from the bullets wheezing around the train as the two young ladies stared at each other.

"Are you a Train Merc?" Shumira asked, realizing that the person on her hips was far lighter than she would have expected. She still couldn't see Koyomi's face.

"Ah, no," Koyomi said, deciding to climb off this attractive girl, as their predicament necessitated a speedy exit. "But we need to get further up the train, fast."

"But Shumira came here to get help from Train Mercs," Shumira said, climbing quickly to her feet. "Bad men are on the train."

"Well yes, that much is obvious," Koyomi retorted, "but I have it on good authority that it is very, very dangerous to stay here." Koyomi was bustling the young woman toward the door she'd just entered by, but stopped at the lockers and quickly searching through them, and found a very small flack jacket that obviously hadn't fit any of the Mercs, so was not in use. "Here, put this on. You are going to need it."

"But Shumira not fight," she insisted, as Koyomi, holding the penlight between her teeth, fitted the flak vest over Shumira's own jacket as it was that big on her.

"The Barjack won't care," Koyomi insisted, tightening the straps, "they'll hose down anyone not with them, and some of their own for good measure." Koyomi had been regaled with stories of failed attacks on trains going to outlying farms. At the time she hadn't known she'd soon be on one! Koyomi was about to start pushing this Shumira toward the door again, when she spun quickly, snatched the penlight out of Koyomi's hand, and shined it into her face. It was Koyomi's turn to blink as she was momentarily blinded.

"Why do you care what happens to Shumira?" the girl asked, pointedly. Koyomi could tell Shumira was regarding her with an evaluating stare, trying to work out if she was trustworthy, and Koyomi respected that.

"Because you and I are the least able to defend ourselves on this entire train," Koyomi responded, and then quickly snatched the penlight back, turned it off, and returned it to her pocket in the gloom. "And most of those that could are dead, at least here. We stand a much better chance of living by working together." Koyomi sighed. "Look, I know you don't know the first thing about me, but I want to live. If you want to live, we have a shared goal. Let's achieve that goal, together. Are you with me?" As her night sight returned, Koyomi could see the diffuse light glistening off the young woman's wide eyes.

"Shumira is with you," the girl said finally, nodding. "We live… together."

"Great," Koyomi responded, almost flippantly, as she spun Shumira around and started marching her towards the door.

"Wait wait!" Shumira almost whispered over her shoulder, and Koyomi stopped pushing just short of the exit.

"What is it?" Koyomi responded, her tone low to match her charge.

"Bad men, right outside."

"Oh damn," Koyomi sighed again.

* * *

The two Barjack Raiders, one a skinny, almost malnourished meatboy dressed like a deranged hermit, and the other, a lithe but powerful looking TR with spikes protruding from every available joint, were standing over the coupling outside the door. The girls watched on through the door window as the meatboy began climbing down across the buffers with the aid of torchlight provided by his accomplice.

"Where did they say it had to go?" the meatboy asked, looking under the large coupling holding the caboose to the final boxcar.

"Under the coupling, near the compression bolt," the TR said, his voice modulating and cutting in and out as he spoke.

"And what does a compression bolt look like?" the meatboy asked, shining the penlight he held in his teeth around as the TR handed him a small lump of something malleable and a small box with a number readout attached to it.

"How should I know, idiot?" the TR said, standing up and thumping his free hand on his hip with an audible 'clang.' "They just said to blow the coupling, blow the bolt, then the caboose and all those guns and ammo are ours."

"So, under here?"

"I guess."

Koyomi watched the two bumbling raiders over Shumira's shoulder. The shorter girl was almost vibrating, she was shaking so much. Koyomi put her hands on Shumira's shoulders to try to calm her, and to her surprise, the young woman rapidly settled, then reached up and put a reassuring hand on Koyomi's own. It was warm, and pleasant, and… Koyomi's thoughts threatened to go to places that would most definitely distract her from their dire and life-threatening situation. Koyomi shook herself, gently withdrew her hands - did Shumira slump slightly when she did so? - and turned back to the locker area.

Koyomi searched while Shumira watched her silhouette move around the small space. It was almost pitch black, so it felt like it took her far longer than it probably did, but finally, Koyomi stood back up with a hard case with military markings on it, and a short metal pole with a knob on the end, just discernible in the gloom. Putting the box down on a shelf, Koyomi flicked the clips up and opened the padded case. Inside were two oddly shaped lumps, that when lifted into the diffuse light resolved into night vision goggles. Koyomi bid Shumira turn around, which she did, and Koyomi fitted the goggles around her blond locks, over the rimless helmet. Shumira seemed uncomfortable, but with some whispered instruction, got the hang of the goggles quickly.

"And lastly, don't get too close to solid objects. Your head now sticks out further. Oh and turn the flash suppressor on - or you'll be blinded by an even average light source." Koyomi saw Shumira nod in assent as she secured her own pair of goggles. Thank goodness Sergeant Lutes liked showing off his 'good gear,' Koyomi silently gave thanks. A good man 'til the end. Finally able to 'see,' Koyomi handed Shumira the metallic rod.

"What does Shumira do with this?" the plucky blonde asked from behind her somewhat-bulky goggles. Koyomi took the rod back, and finding the button on the end without the ball on it, pushed her thumb in. The rod extended suddenly to become a staff, and with another push it retracted. She handed it back.

"What is Koyomi going to use?" was Shumiria's next whispered question. Koyomi's grin in the darkness was feral. She flicked her wrist and the paralyzer bolt she kept strapped to her forearm slid down into her palm. She lifted it and thumbed the activation stud, resulting in a few sparks of blue dancing around the business end, causing a flare cutoff in both their goggles. "Oh" was Shumira's response.

"Let's go take our train back, one bad man at a time," Koyomi said, her face stony.

* * *

"Quit taking so long," the TR said, glaring down at his accomplice. "Those Train Mercs might be morons, but if they catch us in a confined space like this…"

"I think I've got it," the meatboy said, wiggling around to start climbing back up from under the coupling. "Damn thing was slippery with grease. Compound wouldn't…"

Suddenly, two small, dark shapes spilled out of the caboose door. One moved left, and the other right, spreading out like some well-oiled military unit. The TR glanced up, not used to being threatened by such small shapes, but regretted his lack of reaction time when he felt a painful shock in his side, just above the hip joint. His voice modulating and moaning, he seized up - a bad thing on a swaying, speeding train. He tottered sideways, falling away from the coupling and disappearing off the side of the train in the darkness, with a muffled thud. The meatboy was quicker, but was trying to dodge in the dark now his light was gone with his accomplice, and didn't see the ball on the end of the staff as it telescoped out, striking him between the eyes, and knocking him senseless for a few moments. But that was all he needed to lose his grip on the buffers. The sound of him falling under the wheels of the caboose was thankfully drowned out by the speeding train, and gunfire further up the row of boxcars.

Koyomi slumped back against the side of the caboose, panting with exertion and adrenaline. She looked over at Shumira, who was looking confused - a combination of surprise and horror showing in the curl of her mouth, her eyes hidden behind the goggles. Koyomi patted Shumira on the shoulder - it was never easy to fight for your life, and she felt that Shumira hadn't had to do that before. But now they had another problem to deal with.

"Down there," Shumira pointed toward the coupling between carriages. "Bad man put bomb under there."

"Well, we have to get it out and stop it, before it blows up the coupling," Koyomi said.

"Shumira can do that!" the blonde girl said, brightening, and started climbing down over the buffers. Koyomi went to stop her, thinking of all the dangers she was putting herself in doing that on a speeding train, but then caught herself. Shumira was in a fight for her life already. What were a few more dangers at this point?

Thankfully it wasn't long before Shumira squeaked in surprise. "Found it," she said cheerily, and after a few more seconds of exertion noises she pulled back and handed the lump of whatever sort of explody stuff it was and the timer to Koyomi. As Shumira was climbing back up, Koyomi turned the bomb around and got her first look at the timer. It had just ticked down from double to single digits.

9 - 8…

"Oh hell!" Koyomi exclaimed, and considered throwing the munition, but they really needed some sort of advantage. She looked at the top and saw three buttons, the one in the middle depressed.

...7 - 6…

One must be to stop the timer, and the other? There was no time to ponder. Shumira was back up on the platform now, and as Koyomi desperately pulled up her night vision goggles with her free hand, Shumira did the same.

…5…

Koyomi lifted the bomb, and angled her head to get the last light from the glow to the west. It was just enough to see that the left button was blue, and the right was red.

...4…

Out of the corner of her eye, Koyomi could see Shumira smiling at her. She really was beautiful. Koyomi shook her head, and made a choice.

...3…

She pressed the red button, and the countdown stalled. She let go of the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Shumira, making out Koyomi's face in the final light of day, stopped smiling and her eyes grew tense. Koyomi turned the timer around, and Shumira took a sharp intake of breath, but settled again when she saw the timer was not moving.

"Too close," Koyomi said, "but we now have a distinct advantage. Let's see if we can scare up any more." Shumira's smile was more cautious, this time.

* * *

Koyomi dropped the last two feet off the ladder to land next to Shumira. "Well, that's not going to work," Koyomi said to her new companion. "I could see several shapes moving along the top of the train, exchanging fire with others further along. I'm pretty sure they're Barjack."

"Bad men, right," Shumira said, then nodded. Koyomi, back on a flat surface, was checking her paralyzer bolt. With the time it had been since the last charging, and the use it had just been put to, the charge was spent.

"Damn. Looks like my paralyzer bolt is flat," Koyomi told Shumira who was looking quizzically at the device. "It'll be no more help until I can get it charged again." Shumira nodded as Koyomi reattached it to the forearm holster, then the pretty blonde brightened.

"Shumira show Koyomi a better way to move up the train. Look." The blonde grabbed a protruding knob on the end of the boxcar, and slid it to the side. It opened a slot, some two feet wide and eight inches high. "This is how Shumira gets around," she said, and went to wiggle through the opening. However, the extra bulk of her flack jacket and helmet wouldn't let her fit through. Koyomi gently pulled her back, took off the offending articles of protective gear, and then Shumira slipped through the small hole like a rabbit down a burrow. Koyomi handed through the gear, the bomb, and then her gear which was hastily removed, and then started wiggling. She was slightly more 'ample' than Shumira, so it was a tight squeeze, but she did manage to get in.

"So what's the deal with the slot?" Koyomi asked as she closed the slot with a click, and was reduced to groping around in the dark, the near-total absence of light reducing the night vision goggles to deadweight.

"They are access to feed animals being transported," Shumira replied, picking up a lantern off to her left, and activating it. The two girls gladly flipped up their night vision goggles, and Shumira headed for the other end of the boxcar between two walls of stacked, oblong metal boxes, taking the light source with her, "and handy Shumira, and now Koyomi access. Everyone else gets to climb over the boxcars."

Shumira turned back and gave Koyomi a self-satisfied grin, then kept moving. Koyomi rolled her eyes when the other girl wasn't looking, and glanced at the metal boxes. They looked vaguely military, but she couldn't make out any markings with the light moving away, and considering it likely unimportant, followed her younger guide. Koyomi's stride was longer than Shumira's, so she caught up quickly, and then ran into the back of the other girl while looking at the stored foodstuffs at the forward end of the boxcar. Shumira had stopped suddenly and was looking down. Koyomi looked around the shorter girl and saw a puddle of what had to be heartsblood. Both girls slowly tiled their heads to look up, and saw, in the darkness near the roof of the boxcar, a body slumped through a partly open, sliding skylight, perched precariously on a short length of ladder.

Koyomi looked at the stacks of crates and barrels, all tied in securely to rings attached to the walls. Her gaze flowed up the stacks. "You know," she said, her tone contemplative, "I reckon I could climb up the boxes and barrels, and get onto that bit of ladder."

Shumira turned to Koyomi, her eyes wide and face pailing as Koyomi re-secured her flak jacket and helmet. "But why would Koyomi want to do that?"

"Oh, I don't _want_ to do anything of the sort," Koyomi retorted, testing her first handhold and pulling herself up, "but we need to check to see if he's still alive, and if there is anything we can do to help." She quite deftly hopped up onto the next barrel. "And either way, he's got a gun. We might be able to clear the Barjack from our path, and reach the Train Mercs at the front of the train."

"Oh," said Shumira, a hint of sadness in her voice, "but..."

"Give me a minute, this bit is tricky," Koyomi cut her off, so focused on her task she didn't notice the other girl's reaction. Koyomi reached the highest barrel, balanced on it for a few seconds, then leaped across to the back of the ladder section. The old ladder groaned under the added weight, and Shumira gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

"Sir? Sir?" Koyomi asked quietly as he climbed up next to the stricken Train Merc. "Can you hear me? Can I do anything to help?" When that elicited no response, she put her first two fingers to this side of the man's neck as the nurse at the first aid course had shown her, but there was no pulse, and the man's neck was cool to the touch. "It's no good, he's dead," she spoke quietly down to Shumira, who grimaced back up at her. Koyomi looked around. The man was less than average build, and was latched onto the ladder with a cable and hook arrangement from his battle kit. His head and shoulders were still slumped above the roof of the train, as was his weapon. The blood was dripping from the edge of the partly open skylight.

Koyomi climbed higher, aware she wasn't latched to the ladder like the Train Merc and managed to climb high enough to stick her head out of the skylight. She flipped down the night vision goggles, and looked back up the train. "Oh no," she said, after pulling her head back in, flipping up the goggles and looking down at Shumira. "There are at least three Barjack coming back this way along the train. Maybe they expected to hear the bomb go off, and are coming to investigate."

"Get down then! Shumira and Koyomi have to hide," Shumira implored in an almost whining tone. But emboldened by their success outside the caboose, Koyomi had another idea.

"I'm going to wait until they get close, and then hose them down with this Merc's gun!"

"Noooo," Shumira wailed quietly, and slumped down next to the food crates. "Don't get killed. Shumira really like you." Koyomi looked down at the sweet, blonde teen and felt bad for her. She must be so not ready for this. She couldn't have lived on the streets of Iron City like Koyomi had.

"I'll be fine," Koyomi stated in the most self-assured tone she could muster. '_I think,' _she added silently, and went about getting organized with the dead Mercs gun.

'_It's not like I have much of a choice,' _Koyomi thought to herself as she slid back up through the skylight, careful to keep her silhouette as low as possible. She slid between the Merc's corpse and his gun, glad that it wasn't a gutshot that finished this poor guy. It was also helpful that Koyomi was very empty after the caboose incident. '_I either try doing _something, _and risk dying, or run and hide, and risk dying, or worse... if we're discovered.' _

On that thought, she looked down at the huddled Shumira. The poor girl was almost in tears, staring up at her with wide, fear-filled eyes. Koyomi swallowed hard. If she messed this up, she might get out of it with a clean death. But Shumira… these animals would do horrible things to her. Koyomi couldn't let that happen. She gritted her teeth, flipped the night vision goggles down, and gripped the SMG.

The gun came to life, made a quiet 'boop-ba' noise, and a red telltale lit up on the trigger guard. But Koyomi didn't catch any of this. She was focused on the shapes moving toward their boxcar, down the train. They were huddling low, avoiding wild sprays of fire from further up the train. There were three of them, Koyomi realized, and her mouth went dry. Two mostly meatboys, and a larger, possibly full TR in the back. Flipping to thermal vision, she could see the heat emanating from the exposed bodies of the two lead Barjack, except for some cold areas - the arm on one and leg on another - that suggested cyber replacements. The larger, TR cyborg shape was much colder. What wasn't cold was the shapes of their guns. All three had weapons with glowing barrels - a clear sign they were recently used, and would be again if Koyomi messed this up.

She remembered the instruction she'd been given with hunting rifles by her cousins out on Farm 23. She had no idea if an SMG was like a hunting rifle, but from what she'd seen, this was more a case of 'pull the trigger, spray and pray.' She could do that. If they were close enough, she'd have to hit them. Right?

They were on top of the next boxcar now, moving quickly toward her position. "Douse the lamp," Koyomi called down to Shumira as loudly as she dared, and the young blonde quickly obeyed. Koyomi didn't want to give their presence away with absent-minded light. Just as the raiders reached the gap between the boxcars looked like the best spot to open up on them. Close enough to be fairly sure of hitting, but not so close they'd see her and fire first.

As the two meatboys were several paces from the end of the next car, Koyomi released her held breath as she'd been taught to do, and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened!

Was it jammed? She quietly racked the slide, and it moved freely. Then she took the grip in her hand again, and this time heard the unhappy sound the gun hand made. Koyomi's head spun. Was it coded to the wearer? What could she do? She moved to try to get the man's arm toward the gun, but with her own body in the way, it was just not going to work. While shifting, she absently put her right hand in the flow of blood from the deceased Train Merc, and took a sharp intake of breath in revulsion. She was not cut out for this. She looked at the Barjack. They were getting ready to jump to her boxcar, only yards away. Once they landed they'd surely see her by the light of the moon slowly rising in the east.

Then a thought struck her. '_I have this man's blood on my hand. Perhaps the gun will recognize that?' _She gripped the SMG again as the two meatboys jumped. Mumbling a prayer to whoever was listening, she squeezed the trigger.

The report from the SMG was high and rapid. It kicked, and Koyomi lost the grip of one of her feet on the ladder. She pivoted, and the gun tracked across the two meatboys who were in mid-jump. Koyomi would never forget the moment. The sickening feeling of losing her grip on the ladder, and the sight of the rounds cutting a swathe across the two jumping Barjack. Whether the bullets killed the raiders or not, their flight was interrupted. They fell to either side of their intended marks, and tumbled off the side of the boxcar, disappearing into the rushing scenery beside the hurtling train.

Not so the TR. Several SMG rounds had ricocheted off his carapace, each with its own spark, but 'he' paid them little mind. With the increasing light coming from the moon, Koyomi could see a wicked grin split across the hulking cyborg's face as she struggled to get her loose foot back on any rung of the ladder. He took a few steps back, safe in the expectation that the SMG rounds, at anything but point-blank range, wouldn't do more than scratch off the last shreds of paint from his battered armor.

Koyomi finally got the toe hold she'd been searching for, and gripped the SMG again. She hoped it still had some load left in the clip, and her hand was still wet enough with the blood. She had no time to check either. If the TR got to her… if he was right and the SMG rounds wouldn't stop him. Koyomi was almost hyperventilating as she squeezed the trigger.

Time slowed. There was a single 'chug' from the SMG and then a clunk of the breach flicking back, empty. Koyomi could see the bullet leave the gun, and she immediately knew she'd missed. It raced away, just passed the left hip of the jumping TR, through a clump of thin, regular sticks attached to his belt…

The explosion reminded Koyomi's addled brain of the one at the back of the train that had started this crazy nightmare. She was deafened again, but the night vision goggles protected her eyes both physically and with the flash suppressor. She became aware, an indeterminate time later, of hanging just off the ladder, cradled by the corpse of the Train Merc who was held by his secure line to the ladder. Koyomi grabbed back hold of the ladder, and shook her head a few times to clear it. She touched her face, feeling new nicks and bruises, but it didn't feel burnt. She must have been knocked back inside the hatch by the shockwave before the fading blast reached her. If it wasn't for the helmet, she'd have singed hair for sure. She felt sore, and rattled. Koyomi desperately hoped the immediate danger was now passed, but she had to be sure. She also needed the dead Merc's gun if she was going to do anything about any remaining danger near them on the top of the train.

Koyomi crouched on the ladder rung and pulled the dead Merc's arms over her shoulders. With significant effort, her muscles and joints protesting after the mistreatment they'd sustained, she managed to push herself and the dead Merc back up, and out of the skylight until the weight of his head and upper torso could be laid on the roof of the boxcar. She took a quick, 360 degree look around by eye, the night vision goggles smashed and useless, and couldn't see any sign of the TR or other raiders by moonlight. But Koyomi wasn't taking any chances. She found the clips for the SMG on the man's belt, and it took her a few goes to reload his weapon. Seeing a green light when she took hold of the grip, she felt somewhat more comfortable.

But it was the ringing in her ears that was her undoing. She didn't hear the dirtbike as it revved up, accelerating along a ledge near the train line to jump onto the roof of the very same boxcar that Koyomi occupied. She felt the impact of it's landing, and realized when she was bathed in its headlight from behind that she was in all sorts of trouble.

"What do we have here?" the Barjack rider proclaimed, reaching down to grab Koyomi by the back of her flack jacket. She didn't hear what he had to say, but just one look into his drug-fueled gaze was enough to drive Koyomi into a flurry of activity. She couldn't reach the SMG down on the rooftop, and she was held from behind, by… the flack jacket! Loathe to be parted from it, but not wanting to be mauled by this creep, she did the only thing she could do. She flicked the quick release clips down the side of the protection and threw her arms up. The Barjack seemed surprised when she suddenly slid away, and he was left holding the jacket. He threw it behind himself, and reached to rev the bike's engine, ready to give chase. But Koyomi wasn't going anywhere. She crawled over to the SMG, grabbed the grip, swung the barrel around, and squeezed the trigger.

And nothing happened!

"Shiiii-" Koyomi exclaimed, and released she couldn't hear herself. She looked down at her right hand and saw the blood had dried in the evening air and was flaking off in places. '_No more SMG, then,'_ she thought, rational thinking taking over in the face of certain doom, or worse. The bike rider moved to close on her, not bothering to get off his machine. She quickly heaved on the dead Train Merc, hauling his body onto the roof and detaching the hook that had held him to the ladder, it being pulled up instead of down. As the Barjack reached for what he presumed was a helpless girl he would soon be having his way with, Koyomi did two things very quickly. She grabbed up the hook, snagging it between the spokes of the front wheel of the bike, and kicked the body of the Train Merc, causing the hapless corpse to slide off the top, flat section of the boxcar, and onto the curved edge, where it picked up speed and fell off the edge and into the night.

The Barjack's eyes went wide and his mouth parted slightly, as, too surprised to react quickly enough, the front wheel of the bike was whipped out from under him by the weight of the corpse. Bike and rider slide down and off the side of the roof, to smash into the ground flashing past in the moonshadow of the train below. There was some muffled digital dialogue from the direction of the corpse, which Koyomi's ringing ears didn't catch, and then some 15 seconds later, an explosion lit up the night, near the tracks beyond the back of the speeding factory train.

Koyomi slumped down on the roof of the boxcar, not wanting to garner any further attention from any Barjack. But in truth, she was exhausted. She was breathing heavily. Her ears were ringing. Her arm where it had previously been broken was aching. She checked the associated wrist and was glad to see that the copper band with the green, glass faux gem in it was still, somewhat miraculously, attached. She would give it back to Hugo if he was still... able to accept it when she got back to Iron City. It had done its job as a good luck charm impressively well.

Koyomi saw a lump further up the boxcar roof, the edges flapping in the breeze of the train's movement. She crawled up to it and found it was her flack jacket, caught in the grip rail that ran along the length of the roof. She freed it, and bundled it up like a pillow, and lay her aching head on it for a quick rest.

As the adrenaline ebbed, the pain intensified. She knew she needed to move, but she felt so tired. "Just a short rest," she promised herself, and was glad to just make out her voice over the ringing. "No one will mind." She was just fading out when she sat bolt upright. Shumira!

It took Koyomi several minutes to get down to the floor of the boxcar from the ladder and the stacks of stored foodstuffs with only the reflected light of the moon to go by. She called out quietly for Shumira, but there was no response. She was getting emotional when she noticed light coming through the _open _slot in the forward end of the boxcar.

'_Ah, you crafty little minx,'_ Koyomi thought, '_you've moved further up the train. Good girl.' _It took several more minutes for Koyomi to climb through the slot out of the current boxcar, and into the slot in the next one. She was just getting up to surveil her surroundings when she felt a metal ball strike her in the side. After everything she'd been through, she tumbled to a heap on the floor, which saved her from the next strike.

"Shumira!" Koyomi called through teeth clenched in pain, "It's me. Stop!" Koyomi hoped desperately that she was right, and when the lamplight came up and her eyes adjusted, she found the pretty blonde girl standing over her, eyes wide a tear-filled, shaking, and wringing her hands, the extendable pole dropped behind her.

"Shumira is soooo sooorrryyyy!" she moaned, and fell to her knees next to Koyomi. "Shumira thought... you were bad men!" Koyomi was rubbing her side and working her way to a sitting position. She ached in so many places now, she could almost understand why some people replaced it all with cybernetics. Almost. Koyomi had to just sit and breathe for a time, to get the pain under control, and then she struggled to her feet, helped by Shumira. Koyomi looked back at the slot.

"Shumira, while I appreciate your willingness to defend yourself, you yourself said that no one besides the two of us would be able to fit through that slot. So why didn't you check it was me first?"

Shumira's cheeks flushed and she started to sob. "Shumira is so sorry. Shumira heard gunfire, and bombs, and thought for sure Koyomi was dead."

"Fair call," Koyomi responded, her face softening. "I thought for sure I was dead a few times there, too."

"Shumira was sure they would come for Shumira next," the blonde girl said next, "so Shumira hurried into this boxcar, to make a…" she paused, searching her mind for the right term, "last stand." She said eventually. "Shumira was so scared, Shumira didn't think to check who was coming in first. Shumira is sooo soooorrryyyy for hurting Koyomi. Koyomi has to let Shumira make it up to her."

"That can all wait until later," Koyomi said, noticing the large quantity of foodstuffs packed in the forward end of this boxcar, while the back end was bare. It was an even better assortment than in the previous carriage, and all tied down with care. It had to be bound for Zalem, Koyomi considered. "We have to keep moving up the train, and I'll need your help to get through the slots, now."

Koyomi stopped speaking when Shumira stopped walking. She looked down at the blonde girl's face and saw an angry pout lodged there. Koyomi's brows furrowed. She had no idea what she'd done.

"Shumira will NOT go any further up the train," Shumira said, planting her fists firmly on her hips. She stood there for a moment, doing her best to look immovable, and then she started to cry. Koyomi was dumbfounded, and although it hurt, and she had to move slowly, she took the other girl in her arms and hugged her gently.

"Tell me," Koyomi asked gently when Shumira's sobs subsided. "Why do you need to stay here so badly?"

"Because this is why Shumira is here," the girl said, looking up pointedly. "Shumira was sent to farm 23 to buy food for the Warm Welcome Soup Kitchen in Westside. This food will feed all the refugees getting off the trains for three months. If the bad men get hold of it, many poor people in Iron City will starve!" Koyomi looked down on her new friend's anguished face with genuine admiration. How this little slip of a young woman - Koyomi wouldn't think of her as a girl anymore - could travel out to Farm 23, negotiate the purchase of all this food and its transport back to Iron City, all by herself, with her limited vocabulary, was astonishing.

"Well then," Koyomi began, straightening even though it hurt, "we'd best make sure it makes it back to the Soup Kitchen, then."

A huge grin split Shumira's face and made her eyes sparkle. Koyomi was spellbound by the sight of her new friend's beauty. Shumira grabbed hold of the shoulders of Koyomi's now torn and grubby shirt, pulled Koyomi closer to her, and kissed Koyomi dead on the lips! Before Koyomi could react, it was over, but the tingle of the contact lingered on her lips. And Koyomi found that she liked it. She liked it rather a lot.

Koyomi was still trying to pull herself together when Shumira came back from where she'd hurried off to.

"Here is the bomb from earlier," Shumira said, her eyes aglow. "Can this help protect the food?"

"Just maybe it can," Koyomi said, when they heard the 'clump' of three heavy pairs of boots landing on the train end of the boxcar roof.

* * *

It had taken Koyomi some time to get to the skylight of this boxcar. They'd waited until the sound of walking moved down the roof of the boxcar and away, and then Koyomi had climbed painfully up the stacks of crates and out the skylight, after checking the coast was clear. She couldn't see or hear - the ringing had receded to just a dull buzz - any more gunfights around the front of the train, using the other set of night vision goggles she'd taken from Shumira, who was waiting quietly in the boxcar. Back the other way, she could see shapes moving around on the roof of the caboose. She expected they would be Barjack. Maybe the ones that had walked back down the train, or others. The attack cars must have been either destroyed or driven off, but it seemed there were still a few raiders determined to get some plunder out of the shot-up Factory train yet.

Koyomi climbed carefully out of the skylight and crept down the length of Shumira's boxcar. She stopped short of the gap, as she heard muffled swearing below her.

"Is it secure?" she heard a gruff voice say.

"Are your nuts secure?" she heard a rather pissed-off feminine voice reply.

"Well, I think so…" was the response.

"Shut up and get moving," the woman said. "We need to get out of here before that charge goes off."

That was it, Koyomi decided. They were blowing the coupling between Shumira's boxcar and the final two carriages of the train. They would be climbing back up any second, and all Koyomi had was the bomb they'd rescued from the last coupling.

Out of options, Koyomi hit the middle button on the timer, tossed the bomb in the gap between the carriages, and ran…

* * *

Shumira was sitting on a barrel of salted fish and listening hard to the muffled conversation outside the rear wall of the boxcar. She had the extendable staff in her hand, which she hoped she wouldn't have to use again. She just had to get the food to the Soup Kitchen. If it didn't get there, they'd have to close down. So many people would go hungry. Shumira's attractive face took on a hard look. She would do anything she had to to save the soup kitchen food, even letting her new infatuation, the lovely, talented, and beautiful Koyomi, risk her own life to save it.

Shumira was shaken from her musings by the sound of light feet running up the roof away from the end in question.

And then the end of the boxcar blew in…

* * *

Shumira felt gentle hands lifting her off the floor where she'd landed. She didn't know if it had been moments or minutes since the blast, but she was glad Koyomi had insisted she put the flack jacket and helmet back on. Her arm was sore that she'd thrown up to protect her face as she fell backward, and it had some drops of red on it that Koyomi said were splinters she'd pulled out, from the wood of the now _missing back end of the boxcar! _

Both young women were looking out the large hole, and Shumira decided that only moments had passed as, thanks to a slight curve in the track, she could still see the other boxcar and the caboose behind it, about 20 yards behind them, the distance slowly increasing as the two carriages, disconnected from the train, slowed. The young women could make out at least five raiders dancing on the roof of the boxcar, howling and hollering their success to the moon.

Koyomi's lip curled in distaste, until she picked up the faint sound of a digital recording. It was very hard to make out because it sounded like it was being repeated over the top of itself, at least a dozen times. But what she could follow was the countdown that came after it. Also, while staring at the other boxcar, it too missing it's facing wall, she spied the dark shape of the stacked metal boxes in the back of that boxcar, and a concerning thought struck her.

"Shumira," she said loudly so the mildly shell-shocked young woman would hear her. Shumira turned to face Koyomi, a weary but happy smile on her face. "Those sheet-metal boxes in the back of that boxcar we are looking at, did you see anything written on them that you remember?"

"Um, Shumira thinks it was some chemical name, but Shumira doesn't know what it means," the pretty blonde responded.

"But what was it?" Koyomi pressed. The recorded countdown was at 10, and Koyomi felt a distinct sense of unease twist her stomach.

"Um, Shumira thinks it was something like, Ammonium Nitrate."

"Oh gods!" Koyomi blurted out, dragging Shumira back behind some solid-looking crates and a pile of rice bags.

The recorded countdown reached zero.

A rippling explosion erupted from the caboose. It worked its way from the back of the smashed hardpoint to the front, the remaining walls holding in the blasts, while the gaps let the explosive gasses fountain out like some sort of demented firework.

"So pretty," Shumira said, not able to stay down as Koyomi bid her. Koyomi's own resolve weakened, and she too couldn't help but watch.

Then it happened. The shockwave funneled out the front door of the caboose smashed into the back of the boxcar the Barjack revelers were now racing to leave. The concussion obliterated the back wall of the boxcar, and tore into the stacked boxes of highly explosive fertilizer.

The train was just leaving the stricken, separated carriages behind around the curve when the ammonium nitrate went up. The shockwave bounced off the canyon walls and buffeted Shumira's boxcar, rocking it on the rails. But it kept moving, outrunning the worst of the blast. The Barjack were vaporized, to a man, and their prize as well. The last the girls saw of it was the front bogie wheels of the boxcar smashing into the canyon walls some 50 yards away, safely behind the rest of the onrushing train. All Koyomi could think of as she was knocked over yet again was '_Lutes was right, sooo right!'_

When the noise and light and sound subsided, Koyomi found herself lying face down on something soft behind the rice bags. As her senses recovered from the most recent onslaught, from the dim light of the lantern somewhere else in the boxcar, she made out Shumira grinning up at her from inches away.

"Shumira and Koyomi should really stop meeting like this," Shumira whispered to the young woman above her. Despite the pain, Koyomi hurriedly climbed off the prone young woman she was becoming far too fond of, seeing an obvious look of disappointment on the other young woman's face at the action.

"We have to make sure there are no more Barjack on the train," Koyomi said to cover the awkward moment, and Shumira nodded. But before they could move to do anything else, the skylight slid open, and a head popped through. Koyomi was startled! She looked around for anything that she could use as a weapon, and came up empty.

"Just what mary hell have you two unleashed on this end of the damn train?" the Train Merc Commander demanded when he'd worked out the women were definitely not Barjack. "We've lost 20 Mercs AND two carriages. That's going to cost you."

"Cost Shumira and Koyomi?" Shumira shot back, leaping to her feet, balling her fists and glaring up at the Rail Merc Commander. "We saved Factory train. You are lucky to have anything at all."

"Whatever you _think_ you did, you cost the Factory two carriages, 20 men, the armament contained within, and the contents of the destroyed boxcar," the Commander shot back. "The contents of _this_ boxcar should just about cover it."

"Noooo!" Shumira wailed, her last nerve shredded. "This is for the poor, you can't give it to the Factory!"

"Sorry, luv," the Commander said slyly, "just followin' orders."

Shumira put her face in her hands, sobbing loudly. Koyomi took her into a cuddle, and looked up at the self-satisfied Train Merc Commander. "Well, I guess you are only doing what you have to," Koyomi said, her tone smooth and understanding, "but perhaps you'd like a little more 'on the side,' too - completely legal." The Commander was looking interested. A wry smile curled the left side of Koyomi's mouth. "Let's play a few friendly rounds of cards, say the contents of this boxcar for the stash of chips I have in this flack jacket. Koyomi undid a zipper at the bottom of the jacket and a rain of chips fell from the open seam to clatter all around the floor.

"What do you say?"

* * *

It wasn't long after dawn when the damaged Factory train from Farm 23 limped its way into the Western Iron City goods yards, and safety, such as it was. The cyber loaders began quickly and efficiently emptying the boxcars, transporting the goods into the sorting houses for the best to be separated and sent up to Zalem, and the cast-offs to be sold to the dirges in Iron City.

However, no loaders came anywhere near the final boxcar of the train.

Koyomi awoke from a deep, if short slumber. She couldn't remember what she'd been dreaming, but the feelings were still there - and they weren't good. A deep seated fear and loathing was seeping away from her, but as she blinked her eyes to clear them, she felt like the funk of sleep would not leave her. Her head ached in several places, but when compared to what her body would tell her as soon as she sat up, Koyomi considered it negligible. She'd played 7 hrs through the night to win back the food for Shumira's soup kitchen, running on leftover adrenalin and elation at still being alive. She hadn't been sure the surly Train Merc Commander would keep his word, but when it looked like his men would lynch him if he didn't, he'd finally acquiesced, saying he'd report that it was lost in the explosion.

Koyomi didn't want to move. She was comfortable, and knew that movement would equal pain for quite some time. She thought about visiting Doc Ido for some pain meds. She'd see how bad it really was when the time came.

Koyomi finally gave in and turned her head, realizing she was snuggled under a blanket with - Shumira! Extracting herself carefully from the other young woman's sleep embrace, she got shakily to her feet, and shuffled away a few steps and checked herself over. Flack jacket, check. Chips, check. Bumps, bruises, scrapes, sore ribs (in two places) and many cuts, check. But she had all her fingers and toes, limbs, eyes, hair. It was all still there. She felt amazed, and vaguely empowered. And so very, very lucky.

"This must be how Alita feels," Koyomi said to herself, stretching carefully. "Well, the elated part, not the beat to a pulp part." Suddenly, she was consumed by a wide yawn. Still very tired.

"Who?" a sleepy voice asked from the direction of the blanket. Shumira poked her head up, bed hair very much in evidence.

"Oh, just someone I know," Koyomi replied, '_and need to speak with,'_ she added to herself.

"You can introduce Shumira later," Shumira said, straightening her hair with her hands and settling the bandanna back into a position Koyomi thought was a very regular sight with this young woman.

"Um, OK," Koyomi said, a little surprised that Shumira didn't think they were going their own separate ways now they were back in civilization, such as it was.

"Great," Shumira said, gathering her meager belongings, including, Koyomi noted, the extendable staff. "Shumira needs to get the Soup Kitchen staff over here to unload the boxcar, and then Shumira and Koyomi can go back to Shumira's place to get cleaned up and have a well-earned rest."

Again Koyomi was a little taken aback by Shumira's assertion that they would stick together now they were back in Iron City. But Koyomi didn't actually have anywhere to stay, at least until she talked to one of her many aunts or uncles to let her crash on their floor.

"I should probably go stay with one of my relatives…" Koyomi began as she staggered her way up to the mangled, open end of the boxcar. She reached the edge of the blasted timbers, and her mind jumped back to the turmoil of the night before. Koyomi felt dizzy, and the world started to tilt, until she felt a small hand grasp her arm and spin her around so she was looking at the determined face Shumira used when she wasn't going to be budged.

"No!" Shumira said, firmly yet gently. "Shumira owes Koyomi so much, and Koyomi is still a bit wobbly on her feet." The shorter blonde pointed to the edge that Koyomi was leaning out over, only being stopped from falling by Shumira's timely intervention.

"Oh," Koyomi said, and steadied herself, leaning on the boxcar wall while Shumira continued.

"Shumira owes Koyomi for teaching her how to survive, for saving the food for the soup kitchen, and for saving Shumira's life." The shorter blonde young woman threw her arms around Koyomi's shoulders and sobbed gently into her shoulder. Koyomi could do little but pat her on the back in a conciliatory fashion. "Shumira _has_ to pay Koyomi back. Please let Shumira do this!" She kept sobbing until Koyomi agreed.

It was like a switch was flipped in the young blonde woman. She immediately brightened, and began helping Koyomi down off the back of the boxcar, talking all the while.

"Shumira lives in a really nice apartment," she began, "Koyomi will love it! It has a great shower, or a bath if Koyomi wants to soak the aches away. There are comfortable beds, air conditioning…"

"Wow," Koyomi couldn't help but utter.

"...great food, all the channels on the flat screen."

They began walking through the goods yard, toward the cues of refugees indicating that the Warm Welcome Soup Kitchen was that way.

"Shumira will just tell the soup kitchen people that the food is in the boxcar, and then we can go get cleaned up." Koyomi nodded. Still a little too tired to argue, her head buzzing. Shumira reached over and took Koyomi's hand. Koyomi didn't feel like stopping her.

"I need to check a bounty kiosk before we go too far," Koyomi said, her tone a little slurred.

"There's one near the soup kitchen," Shumira responded. "And when we get to the apartment, you can meet Shumira's brother! He's famous!"

"Your brother?" Koyomi responded. The day had only just started, and it was getting weirder and weirder.


End file.
